Morné van Tonder is not only a highly skilled CFO, but someone who has navigated profound personal highs and lows. The depth of empathy, resilience and practical good sense in his leadership goes beyond the numbers to define international success for Pragma.
While navigating the life-changing loss of his wife to cancer, Pragma CFO Morné van Tonder has tackled a lot to ensure he not only remains a dedicated father, but also a strong, people-focused leader who has helped guide Pragma from a founder-led, 200-person business to an international engineering tech group with 450 employees and a presence across South Africa, Europe, the US and Mexico.
Pragma, an enterprise asset management company with a unique South African success story sees its homegrown engineering software used in over 170 countries.
“We manage physical assets,” explains Morné. “Think about plant maintenance, reliability, keeping machines running longer – that’s what we do.” With three key divisions – enterprise software, professional consulting and managed services – Pragma provides end-to-end asset management for major industrial clients. “Our biggest division is managed services,” he explains. “We plan and schedule maintenance for companies like Astron, Shell, Sasol, and even Tetra Pak globally.”
In fact, about 30 percent of Pragma’s client base is now international. “We’ve got software running in 16 languages, managing maintenance for Tetra Pak machines in 168 countries,” says Morné. “It’s a South African-developed product that’s more affordable and just as capable as the top systems out there.”
Their technology isn’t static either. “We rewrote our software and launched a new app-based platform in 2022,” he notes. “And the big drive now is AI – using tech to solve problems rather than people.”
While he believes that AI and tech has a firm role in business growth, he places just as much importance on people, seeing his role as CFO as far more than facts and figures. Even in the most challenging times, Morné has put people upfront.
Inflection point
“Pragma was a founder-led business for most of its life,” he says. “Adriaan Scheeres, our founder, retired last year, and we brought in our new CEO, Scott Gibson, from Dimension Data. You can feel the shift – it’s more structured and corporate but we’re very intentional about keeping the human part intact.”
Covid was another major inflection point. While the business which serves essential services operations – mines, petrol stations and manufacturing environments – did not halt during the pandemic, the work-from-home culture needed to be reconfigured post-Covid.
“Pre-Covid, everyone knew everyone in the building and you knew everyone. Afterwards, people started saying, ‘Who’s that? They have been working here for six months’?” he laughs, explaining how those who joined during Covid were not recognised in the physical office environment.
“We had to rethink how to rebuild the connection. “It’s not about clocking hours – it’s about being there when it matters. Now, if there are design sessions or workshops, everyone needs to be in the office – that’s where we’ve drawn clearer lines. But if your kid has a soccer game, no one’s going to stop you from going. That’s the balance. We ask teams to be in three days a week, and we’ve tried to stay flexible. Most people have accepted that. Overall, I think we’ve struck a good balance.”
Balance is something important to Morné, even when looking at generational dynamics within the company. While Morné doesn’t have any Gen Z team members in his direct department, he’s genuinely impressed by the younger energy in the business. “They actually want to be in the office – you can hear when they’re in,” he laughs. “They’re loud, vibey and they bring great energy. The HR team even had me trying to film a selfie video the other day!”
Morné notes that the same balance has worked in his own team where retention has been strong. “Most of my team has been here five years or more. We’ve built a culture of trust and flexibility – and that really helps people stay.” As a CFO, he believes retention comes down to culture and trust. “You’ve got to know your people. Some you don’t have to manage. Others you do. That’s normal. But if people enjoy what they do and feel respected, they’ll stay.”
Leadership and fatherhood after loss
Morné’s balancing skills extend into the world of fatherhood too. “I’ve got four boys – from matric down to grade five. My Saturdays are just running around: rugby, soccer, cross country, mountain biking. One day, I clocked 400km just driving them,” he says. “But I love it. That’s what matters.”
Family and his career at Pragma are entwined and Morné counts the amount of years he has been at Pragma alongside his eldest son’s school tenure – when his eldest started grade r, Morné took a full month off between leaving his previous company and starting at Pragma. “I dropped him at school every morning. I still remember it clearly,” he says.
“And now he’s in matric, heading to Stellenbosch next year.”
The last few years have sadly seen Morné manage the challenges of parenthood alone, losing his wife to cancer in 2021/2022. He attributes much of his ability to cope and support his children through his immense personal loss to the support Pragma gave to him. He experienced, first hand, the same level of trust and flexibility he espouses.
“During her treatment, I worked from the hospital, from her room. I never once had to worry about being at the office. The business just supported me — gave me time, space, trust. You can’t put a price on that.”
At the time, Morné was also leading the rollout of a major ERP implementation. “We were meant to go live in July 2022,” he says. “But I postponed it. I told Adriaan I couldn’t do it then. So, we moved it to September. Even with the delay, it was one of the most successful ERP projects I’ve seen.
“We kept it simple. No over-engineering. The basics were right. We had great partners. And for something as complex as an ERP, I’ll take 90 percent success as a win.”
A winning growth story
This win is one of many Morné has been part of at Pragma. From expanding into the Netherlands and Mexico to restructuring internal operations and modernising reporting tools, Morné has played a strategic role well beyond finance. “I enjoy the operational side – business development, data, sales,” he says.
His leadership has helped Pragma expand its reach while maintaining its identity and ethos. “When I joined, we were about 200 people. We’re now 450. We’ve opened offices in Europe, supported partners in Latin America, and made some acquisitions,” he says. “Some didn’t work – Brazil, for example – but that’s part of learning. We’re far more focused now.”
As a strong role model in resilience and drive, he laughs when asked if his kids will follow in his footsteps. “One said he’d never do what I do – it looks like too much hard work! Fair point,” he quips. “But they all know, whatever you do, you’re going to have to work hard. That’s non-negotiable.”
