From discovering a R41 million fraud scheme to finding simple operational changes that cut costs by 25 percent, Western Investments Group CFO Abrie Collard has built a career on analytical thinking, resilience and, above all, trust. He believes integrity is the quality that gives finance leaders lasting influence long after they leave an organisation.
Trust as a quality is not usually ranked as highly when compared to technical skills such as advanced financial reporting or risk mitigation, but for Abrie Collard, chief financial officer of Western Investments Group, trust lies at the core of the profession and forms the cornerstone of this vocation.
Abrie has every reason to hold this personality trait in such high esteem. During his career spanning diverse industries, he has witnessed first-hand the importance of consistently maintaining professional integrity and how this has earned him the trust of his superiors and enhanced his reputation as an upright and solutions-orientated person.
“It is because of the trust that I have built and the confidence that has been placed on me throughout my career, that former employers would constantly look to me for expert advice. I stand by the assessments that I make and they know that my word is my bond,” he says.
Despite being a no-nonsense accomplished chartered management accountant, Abrie didn’t always see himself as a bean counter. In high school, he leant more towards electrical engineering, spending his spare time building laptops and personal computers.
His dreams of venturing into this field were dashed when someone informed him that the career of his choice was not feasible in the backwaters of Namibia. “You have to go overseas if you want to make big bucks,” the person told him. “Though I was passionate about electronic equipment, I figured that I did not come from a well-to-do family that could afford to take me abroad, let alone pay for my studies at university,” he says pensively.
After a sit down with his parents, who were both running a small business with his mother as a bookkeeper, it was decided that he enrol at Damelin for a one-year bookkeeping course – a move that carved a path for his future career in accounting.
A change of course
He aced the course and was awarded a partial scholarship because of his outstanding academic performance. He managed to complete all this while he was still in grade 10. After high school, he enrolled at Unisa and later joined a mid-tier auditing firm. “The nice thing about this firm is that unlike the Big Four accounting firms, it didn’t have a hierarchy. When I got there my boss didn’t mince his words and told me straight up: ‘Listen, there is no learning curve here, you just have to do it. Take the audit and run with it.’ I had to learn very quickly,” he says laughing.
Abrie worked on several clients in industries such as mining and telecommunications and did audits for some golf clubs.
These humble beginnings in the profession marked a turning point for Abrie’s career and infused in him the values of trust, stoicism and persistence which became the hallmark of his professional career. “I learnt a lot at the auditing firm. But after six years, I realised that it wasn’t my forte – I wanted to be in charge of what happens in the business and not merely to tick boxes,” he says.
This prompted his move to M&Z Motors, the biggest Mercedes Benz dealership in Namibia where he assumed the role of financial accountant. He completed his articles while he was there and moved to join a road construction company three years later. Then he was poached by a South African-based listed construction securities stock company who appointed him as head of finance for Namibia, reporting to group FD in South Africa.
He described this role as one of the defining moments of his career.
“This was my first role in a listed company. There was a lot of reporting that was required on a monthly basis and a plethora of regulations we had to adhere to. I was tasked with appointing people and getting the financial operation off the ground. We were already five months behind our processing so the catch up was painstaking work. It was late nights and weekend work in the first year. I only saw my family for a couple of hours a week, it was brutal,” he says.
“The grit, grind and resilience are what characterised my work in this organisation and this is the work ethic that I have carried throughout my career. It was a big learning curve that also geared me up to understand business better.”
He says that he learnt a lot during this demanding time at the company and found his niche: not just managing the numbers, but being the person at the table whose financial insight shapes the decisions that move the business forward.
Finding value beyond the numbers
As luck would have it, the company was adversely impacted by the economic recession that engulfed Namibia in 2016 resulting in an abrupt halt of construction projects. Abrie was offered secondment to Johannesburg, but he declined, opting to stay in Namibia.
Abrie then joined Veolia Water Technologies, a French-listed water purification and waste management company, while simultaneously consulting for Satcom, a partly state-owned military communications hardware manufacturer.
A year later, Satcom’s managing director offered him a finance director position.
“Satcom is a great company and what made it more appealing to me is that it seamlessly fused my love for electronics and finances. Building military communication equipment from the ground up, Satcom is in a unique space and competes with leading US, British and French companies in this space. It is ranked in the top five in this industry in the world,” says Abrie.
Abrie then ventured into the fast-moving consumer goods space when he joined Namibia Dairies. Here he was able to implement his analytics tools which enabled him to markedly reduce operational costs.
He recalls an incident when the team brainstormed how they could whittle down input costs for the production of milk cartons and ideas were being thrown around, including finding alternative suppliers.
He recalls a six pack of one litre milk cartons standing on the table during the deliberations, and immediately noticed that the carton packaging was very thick and the labelling was in colour. When he asked about the packaging, Abrie was not satisfied with the explanation. The packaging had no effect on the integrity of the product and when the manufacturer was ordered to repackage the milk cartons in a thinner carton and discard the colour printing, it immediately resulted in a 25 percent cost saving on packaging.
“This is why I always encourage my team to ask questions, they are allowed to. As the finance manager, you are the gatekeeper and have to safeguard the finances of the company. Whatever expenditure the company incurs you have to ensure that it is spent optimally and any expense has to be value for money,” says Abrie.
Exposing a multimillion-rand fraud
Abrie left the company after two years and went back into consulting before joining Western Investment, a diversified group involved in small-scale mining/manufacturing and tourism. Upon joining, he received a challenge from the CEO: “Something is wrong. The company is growing, we are doing the right things but the amount of money falling out of the bottom doesn’t make sense. With your analytical tools and incisive analysis, please dive into it.”
It only took five months on the job for Abrie to discover a scam that was milking the company to the tune of R41 million over a nine-year period, allegedly orchestrated by the senior financial manager. That case now is before the courts for criminal prosecution.
“The company is doing much better now and the internal controls are more stringent. I am a firm believer in controls because I believe that as the CFO you are the gatekeeper. I have built a lot of trust equity with the board who now defer major decisions to me for counsel and review. This is the space that I wish to be in, which requires a lot of consistency and diligence,” he says.
A testament to the depth of trust Abrie has cultivated throughout his career is that, years after leaving certain organisations, he still receives calls from former managing directors who seek his counsel. “It’s not unusual for me to get a call from an MD I worked with years ago, wanting to run an idea past me or just check in on each other’s businesses. It goes both ways, we advise each other. That doesn’t happen unless there’s a foundation of trust that was built over time and never broken,” he says.
For Abrie, these enduring professional relationships are living proof that trust, once earned, becomes a career asset that outlasts any single role or title.
Abrie explains that when he is not concerned with earning the trust of captains of industry in Namibia, he is a devout Christian who is actively involved in church activities. He also enjoys spending time with family either socialising, binge watching series, taking a drive or tending to his veggie garden.
“I also dabble up in craft beer brewing, but that has taken a back seat because I am trying to develop analytical tools to enhance financial reporting,” he chuckles.
Notwithstanding his undying love for his family, it seems nothing stands in the way of Abrie’s quest to find or develop a system that can oust fraudsters’ crafty antics and provide compelling evidence for prosecution.
