How Old Mutual CFO Casper Troskie finds balance beyond the balance sheet

Outside the office, Casper Troskie swaps boardrooms for open fields, financial models for mountain bike trails, and capital management for homemade chilli sauce.

The Old Mutual CFO deliberately creates distance from the demands of one of South Africa's largest financial institutions. At his home in Paarl, he spends time walking his three dogs, cycling through nature, tending to his chilli plants and experimenting in the kitchen. His wife handles the baking while he frequently takes charge of the cooking – a partnership, he jokes, that works perfectly as long as they are not both in the kitchen at the same time.

“My wife does a lot of baking, and I do a lot of cooking. That’s how we balance things in the kitchen,” he says.

His favourite dishes include traditional Durban curries (having spent a few years in KZN) and fish braais, while one of his more unusual hobbies is bottling homemade chilli sauces using chillies, he grows himself.

Life on the farm also has its less glamorous moments.

“Sometimes my wife puts me to work on the farm, building or fixing things as there is always a lot to be done,” he says, laughing.

It is this deliberate disconnection from corporate life that allows him to recharge before stepping back into one of the country's most demanding finance roles.

Out of the farm and into the boardroom

By the time most people have had their morning coffee, Casper is already thinking about geopolitical tensions, capital adequacy, market volatility and the resilience of one of South Africa's largest financial institutions.

As CFO of Old Mutual, his responsibilities extend far beyond financial reporting. He helps safeguard billions of rand, shape long-term strategy and ensure the organisation is prepared for whatever uncertainty the global economy delivers.

That contrast between life on the farm and life in the boardroom reflects the changing nature of finance leadership. Today’s CFO is expected to combine technical excellence with strategic judgement, resilience and emotional intelligence.

Ask Casper what occupies most of his working day and his answer surprises many.

“Most people think my time is occupied with financial reporting. It’s actually not. Most of my time is occupied with understanding the performance of the diverse businesses we have and the risks that could impact our balance sheet, whether it be insurance, market, credit, liquidity or other risks and by making sure we position the balance sheet for exactly these types of events,” he says.

Those “events” have become increasingly common.

Since joining Old Mutual in 2018, just ahead of its landmark listing, Casper has helped steer the organisation through one of the most turbulent periods in modern financial history. The COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical conflicts, rising inflation, volatile interest rates and shifting investor sentiment have all tested the resilience of financial institutions.

“Our profits dropped from close to R10 billion down to about R2 billion in the year of COVID. It was quite stressful from a balance sheet management and capital allocation perspective,” he recalls.

The challenges have continued. More recently, geopolitical conflicts have rattled global markets, forcing insurers to respond rapidly to protect both customers and their balance sheets.

“When things like wars happen, they really keep us busy. We spend a lot of time thinking about different scenarios and what they would mean for capital, liquidity and profitability,” he explains.

The value of preparation

One principle has become central to Casper's leadership philosophy: preparation.

“You can never be too prepared.”

Long before crises emerge, his team conducts extensive stress testing, scenario planning and regulatory exercises to understand how the business would respond under different economic conditions. Those rehearsals proved invaluable during COVID-19.

“When COVID happened, we had to make some very big decisions immediately. One of them was whether we should retain our sales force despite the significant short-term cost.”

Old Mutual chose to continue investing in its people, believing that preserving capability would accelerate the company’s recovery once conditions improved.

For Casper, the experience reinforced the importance of thinking beyond short-term financial results.

Preparation alone, however, is not enough, he believes that leadership also requires decisive action and when reflecting on difficult strategic decisions, including Old Mutual's ambitious cost optimisation programme, Casper believes indecision can become more damaging than the problem itself.

“If you don’t take action early enough, the problem just gets bigger and bigger. It requires conviction, decisiveness and resilience,” he adds.

Reducing costs is never easy, he says, because it affects people, processes and organisational culture. Those qualities have become increasingly important as finance leaders navigate an environment where economic conditions can change almost overnight.

However, one of the biggest shifts Casper has witnessed during his career is the move from measuring annual profits to creating sustainable long-term value.

“The big shift for me has been moving from profit measures to value measures. You’re not just thinking about what happened over the last year. You’re thinking about what actions you've taken to improve value on a forward-looking basis.”

“Shareholder value and customer value cannot be separated and if you’re not providing competitive products, customers simply won’t buy them. Creating value for customers, he believes, ultimately creates value for shareholders,” he says.

The changing role of the CFO

For Casper, technology is also transforming finance. He explains that Old Mutual already uses artificial intelligence across multiple functions, from producing meeting minutes and drafting reports to analysing market information and identifying inconsistencies in financial data.

“We use AI in various functions already. But I think where we still need to get to is using it much more strategically to analyse data and generate deeper business insights.”

Despite these technological advances, Casper believes the human side of leadership has become even more important.

“The CFO's job isn't preparing financial statements. My first job is supporting the CEO and the Board in making informed decisions.”

That means understanding markets, evaluating acquisitions, assessing long-term opportunities and helping the executive team navigate uncertainty.

Exceptional CFOs, he says, are distinguished not by technical accounting expertise alone, but by their ability to help businesses make better long-term decisions.

“They help the business make the right decisions and create long-term value.”

More than a numbers game

For Casper, perhaps the biggest evolution in finance leadership is the growing importance of emotional intelligence.

“I think emotional intelligence is critically important. Influencing executive colleagues, engaging with boards, leading specialist teams and supporting finance leaders across the organisation all require more than analytical ability. It's about influence. It’s about motivating people. It’s about helping set direction,” he says.

He readily admits that many of his colleagues know far more than he does within their respective disciplines, whether legal, actuarial or governance. His role is not to be the smartest person in every room, but to bring together expertise that enables better decisions.

“It’s no longer just a numbers game. If you’re a CFO who gets stuck only in the numbers, you're probably not doing your job,” he concludes.