Geoff Baars
Full Name: Geoff Baars
Position and Company Name: Chairperson and CEO of NMG Benefits
Main Activity of the Company: Provision of healthcare and retirement funds consulting and administration to corporate South Africa and its employees
Date and Place of Birth: June 18, 1965, Johannesburg
Schools and Tertiary Education: Kensington Ridge; Cyrildene Primary; King Edward VII School for Boys (the best boys’ school in South Africa then and especially now!); University of the Witwatersrand (actuarial science); Macquarie University, Australia (MBA)
First Job: Trainee actuary at Swiss Reinsurance Company in Johannesburg, 1987
Size of First Pay Packet: R2 200 a month
Career Path to Date: Marketing actuary (that’s not a joke, it’s a real role) at Swiss Re South Africa from 1987 to 1989; marketing actuary at Swiss Re’s head office in Zurich from 1990 to 1992; founder and chairperson of NMG Group (Singapore and Perth) since 1992
Value of Assets under Your Control: R2-billion
Number of People under Your Leadership: About 750 employees worldwide, of whom 360 are in South Africa
Management Style: Enthusiastic (that is, passionate, sometimes too much so) and impatient (ditto)
Personal Best Achievement: Still to come . . . I’m proud of what NMG has achieved – we’re a genuinely global business, started by four South Africans, and South Africa is now less than one-third of our total revenues
Person Who Has Had the Biggest Influence on Your Life: My father, Geoff Baars Snr, ‘The valves specialist’ – he featured regularly in Engineering News
Person Who Has Had the Biggest Influence on Your Career: My partner and cofounder of NMG, Mark Prichard – he is a relentless improver with endless curiosity
Person You Would Most Like to Meet: Bill Gates – his impact outside business (through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, especially) has been even bigger than within, and his efforts to solve problems that governments have failed to solve (such as malaria control and neglected diseases) are astonishing
Businessperson Who Has Impressed You Most: Elon Musk – he is clearly slightly mad (and rubs lots of people up the wrong way – sometimes just for fun), but his business CV is incomparable: PayPal, SpaceX, Starlink, Tesla, The Boring Company, et cetera. He’s had a rough ride at X (Twitter), which shows he can be wrong
Philosophy of Life: When in doubt, be generous; and even if it doesn’t ‘come around’ you’ll sleep better
Biggest Ever Opportunity: Right now – at NMG Benefits, we look after the healthcare and/or retirement savings of about 200 000 families in South Africa and another 160 000 in Botswana
Biggest Ever Disappointment: I don’t dwell on the mistakes or the past – I strictly look forward
Hope for the Future: That South Africa fulfils its potential. To do so, it needs a competent and clean government. Our country has had visionary leadership for only five years of its entire history (between 1994 and 1999)
Favourite Reading: Contemporary fiction (Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Salman Rushdie and Ian McKewan, besides others). I ‘cheat’ by buying all the novels on the Booker Prize shortlist each year and (hopefully) read them
Favourite TV Programme: It’s a tie between The West Wing and The Wire – the two best TV series of all time! More recently, I loved Schitt’s Creek (I cried like a baby at the end), and I am enjoying The Blacklist. I am a big fan of Netflix original series, another amazing innovation
Favourite Food/Drink: I eat (canned) tuna and (canned) beans for lunch four days a week (at least), and my favourite drinks are ‘big’ and bold – all the Islay whiskies, nice bitter IPAs, strong coffee, big red wines (Cape Blends, Cote Rotie), and so on
Favourite Music: South African jazz – McCoy Mrubata, Thandiswa Mazwai and Winston Mankunku Ngozi, among others
Favourite Sport: Rugby to the age of 18; nowadays cycling (10 000 km a year). I also love both mountain biking and road cycling
Hobbies: Playing the saxophone (alto and tenor), reading (including audio books), travel (especially to France), learning new languages (I’m currently learning French and Zulu, via Duo Lingo – a fabulous app!)
Car: A ten-year-old Hyundai i30 turbo diesel. I’m not a car guy; I hope the engineers won’t be offended
Pets: Dogs only – Ridgebacks and rescues
Miscellaneous Dislikes: Cats (pointless pets) and people who put their own self-interest above their clients’ interests
Married: To Marie-Claude
Children: Evan, 31; Lena, 29; Brendon, 27; Emma, 25
Clubs: None
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