Curro Holdings: Leadership change at the top

03 November 2022

Curro’s CEO Andries Greyling has decided to go on retirement, effective 1 January 2023. He will resign as CEO and from the board and will be available to Curro until end June 2023 to facilitate the transition to the new CEO.

Andries has contributed to Curro for over 15 years (first as CFO, COO and then as CEO) and under his leadership the Group navigated unchartered territory during the Covid-19 pandemic. ‘The Board would like to thank Andries for his contribution to the group and the selfless way he worked for the future of the children of this country. We wish him well in his future endeavours,’ says Santie Botha, chairperson of the Board.

The Board announced that the current CFO, Cobus Loubser, will be appointed as CEO, with effect from 1 January 2023. Cobus will remain CFO in the interim, until a new fulltime appointment is made. The Board will advise shareholders in due course once a permanent replacement for the role of CFO has been identified and appointed.

 

Cobus was appointed as an executive director and the CFO of Curro on 1 January 2021. He is a chartered accountant and has broad leadership and commercial experience, having started his career at KMPG Inc., served as the financial manager of Virgin Active SA for four years, and held the CFO position for 11 years at Holdsport Limited until it was acquired by Long4Life Limited in 2017 and delisted. He then became the CEO of Long4Life’s Sport and Recreation division, which he left at the end of 2020 to join Curro.

‘I look forward to building on the firm foundation set by my predecessors in this profoundly important business. Our focus remains on delivering quality education to all learners under our care. We have a strong and very experienced team in place to enthusiastically drive educational opportunities in southern African and enhance shareholder returns, says Cobus.

 

The Board further announced that the current Executive for Corporate Services and the Group Company Secretary, Mari Lategan, be appointed as an executive director to the Board and as the Deputy-CEO, with effect from 1 January 2023. They have commenced a process of identifying a permanent replacement for Mari in her Company Secretariat role.

 

Mari has an MBA from Stellenbosch University’s Business School, an Honours in Journalism and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Stellenbosch University. She joined Curro more than six years ago and made many valuable contributions in her role as Executive for Corporate Services and Group Company Secretary. Prior to joining Curro, she founded a strategic business and communications consultancy firm and was a general manager at Media24.