Set goals for yourself and pursue continuous learning, advises Motus CFO Ockert Janse van Rensburg.
Motus Corporation CFO Ockert Janse van Rensburg is extremely ambitious and likes to set himself challenging goals. He also likes to keep busy. “My forte has always been juggling things. I suppose that’s part of a CFO’s job these days – juggling many different tasks all at once,” he says, before sharing his insight into how to get ahead.
- Read a previously published interview with Ockert here.
“You need a few attributes to really be successful. You need to have some level of IQ or else you’re always going to struggle at some point in your career. Important to this is moral intelligence, as well as spiritual intelligence, and you need a value set in your life,” says the finance executive. “You also need to be able to express these values to yourself. If you can do that, you can live with your own standards.”
The value of emotional intelligence should also be considered, he notes: “Emotional intelligence is important – being able to interact with others is as important as understanding the numbers."
"In this job, as CFO, you get to interact with people from so many walks of life, and you need to be able to relate to all these people, with humility in yourself. You might one day interact with workers on a factory floor and the next with execs at board level.”
Having a reasonable and realistic outlook matters too, he says: “You need to be grounded and have a positive attitude. You must set goals for yourself and pursue continuous learning – you’re not perfect the day you finish your CA exam. You need to continuously challenge yourself and move into different industries, and you need to learn – be honest with yourself about what you don’t know.”
