indwe magazine – Feb 2005

Francois Oberholzer
Chief Financial Officer

Financial Fundi with a Difference
Features Editor, Sam Weber, went to meet the man behind the bottom line. He is a new generation chartered accountant, as comfortable with people as he is with balance sheets. Born and bred in Pretoria, where he still lives, Francois Oberholzer is passionate about his position as Chief Financial Officer to SA Express, and about the airline industry in general.
It is easy to imagine that he must have been a little boy with big dreams of planes and calculators. The truth is that his passion evolved over time. “I became an accountant primarily because the qualification itself opens so many doors. I wouldn’t describe myself as the typical accountant. I am not the sort of person who can engage with figures to the exclusion of all else. I am more of a people’s person.”
And his involvement with the airline industry? “I did my articles with the then Coopers & Lybrand in Pretoria,” he says with a twinkle in his eye. “One of my clients at that time was the old Bop Air. It was then that Jet A1 entered my bloodstream. They say that airplane fuel gets into your blood and that once you’ve worked with an airline, everything else pales by comparison. So it was for me too. The industry is so vibrant and dynamic. Every day is different. There are so many influences and challenges in this industry.”
Francois is easy to relate to and shares his passion openly: “I am very excited about South Africa’s tourism potential. The build up to the 2010 World Cup has started already. Businesses are starting to get infrastructure in place. Since SA Express caters largely for the business traveller, the preparations will have a direct impact on the airline.”
Even though he has only been with the airline for little more than a year, he knows the company intimately. “In brief, SA Express was started in 1994 as the first truly empowered airline in the country. Originally, Canadian shareholders joined up with South Africa’s Thebe Investments to start the airline. A few years later the original company was sold and became part of Transnet.”
The objective of the company was always to serve a very specific sector of the market, and the alliance with SAA facilitated that by segmenting the market between SAA (covering the primary routes with larger planes), SA Express (covering secondary routes with mid-sized planes) and SA Airlink (covering the thin, tertiary routes with smaller planes). This co-operation ensures that all three the airlines serve the market according to its demands.
The conversation quickly returns to the people at SA Express. “I like being amongst the passengers and the crew. It is an area where one can really witness what makes the business tick,” explains Francois. “It gives a more current view, a view on where the business is headed, rather than the view provided by figures, which by their very nature are somewhat more historical.”
Not a true detail person by nature, Francois depends greatly on appointing the right people around him. Asked what he expects from his staff, he explains: “For me, the most important factor is loyalty. Without loyalty one is doomed. This is not always easy to accomplish. Loyalty has to be earned. There is no other way. And that takes time. One has to demonstrate that one has the interest of the other person at heart, that you are willing to protect your staff and that you try to treat others the way you would like to be treated yourself.”
Francois has long been fascinated with the mechanisms of management and leadership. “The effective manager adjusts his style of management to the individual’s needs and personality. Unfortunately we are not taught these principles as part of our studies in accounting and financial management. One has to learn these things the hard way.”
However, Francois continues to make a study of best practice when it comes to managing people. Since he reads widely on the subject, he is fully conversant with the latest trends. “The inclination currently is towards spiritual leadership. In the States, for example, one finds the emergence of the Chief Spiritual Officer. Some companies have already created executive positions for a CSO with the aim of having someone to look after those aspects of employee well-being that have traditionally been ignored - to recognise the employee as a holistic being, to find out what their individual passion is and to align that passion with the objectives of the company in order to create a meaningful opportunity for personal fulfilment.”
Francois is excited by these developments. “We all spend the greater part of our lives at work and this could be so much more meaningful if we felt that we are at work because we want to be there, because we are making a significant contribution. In terms of the company, this leads to greater productivity and effectiveness, greater motivation, lower absenteeism and staff turnover,” he says.
With this energetic focus on holistic people management, it is not surprising to learn that Francois himself has a well-rounded personal life. Married to a fellow Chartered Accountant, the couple leads an active life. Both work hard and play hard, with a joyous predisposition for sport and travelling. Last year’s Christmas weekend was spent in Namibia. “We travelled to Windhoek on SA Express and from there by train to Swakopmund with the Desert Express. I enjoy Swakopmund a lot. It is such an experience to be simultaneously at the coast and in the desert, to be in Africa but to hear German being spoken all around you. Then when you go into the desert, there is that enjoyable unbelievable silence...”
Francois Oberholzer is not the type of conversationalist one easily takes leave of. Well read and with diverse interests, he is able to hold his audience spellbound. Dedicated, compassionate and open, these are the lasting impressions – a new generation of Chartered Accountant, indeed!
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