Bob Head Email & Phone Number

London, England, United Kingdom

Johannesburg Area, South Africa

So if the career was eclectic before, it became more extreme. Six very intersting months - 5 Sundays and 2 Saturdays off with 12 hour days for the six months. Glad I went. Worked with many good people. SAA can be turned around. It just needs the three magic ingredients any turnaround needs - shareholder support. good people and an ability to operate nimbly.

Pretoria Area, South Africa

South African Revenue Service (March 2012 to date)Acting Finance Director, SARS (December 2013 to December 2014)Responsible for SARS’ own accounts, accounting for all the tax collected, balance of payments reports, debt, facilities, travel, phones, fleet, legal and procurement.Working on better value for money re expenses. Ripping out bureaucracy whilst complying with public finance rules.Ensuring the service functions provide just that – service.Developing revenue initiatives to increase the tax take.Making internal functions customer focussed.Improving accountability.Revamping the management information.Various governance committees including large case settlement committees.Special Adviser to the Commissioner of SARS (March 2012 – December 2013 and December 2014 to July 2015)Wide ranging portfolio of tasks involving improving the performance of the Large Business Centre, negotiating with large corporates, enhancing governance cost effectively, upgrading HR and training, getting the best value for money.Other advisory work for either the Commissioner or the Finance Minister.

CEO of the Old Mutual Wealth Management businesses (all branded Skandia) in the UK, Italy, France, Spain and off shore (branded Royal Skandia).Now employs around 2,500 people (2009, 3000) mainly based in the UK, the Isle of Mann (the offshore business writing business in the Far East, the Middle East, Latin America and Europe), Italy and France. Funds under management of £58bn at 30 June 2011. In 2009 the RoE for Wealth Management was 5%. We lifted it to be in the target range of 12%-15%.Expense reduction programme amounting to 25% of the expenses. The public target was delivered by June 2011, 18 months ahead of the stock market promise.Improved control environment with breakage costs reduced from £35m to £9m.Increasing market share in a difficult market without slashing prices.Robustness, resilience and scalability of systems improved.The big challenge was to get an intermediated business to focus on the end customer as well as the intermediary.Director of Skandiabanken (internet bank in Sweden and Norway).For the first year I was responsible for the entire Skandia group as a holding measure.

Responsible for the Skandia group within Old Mutual.

In charge of Mutual & Federal (the second largest Property & Casualty company in South Africa), Old Mutual (one of South Africa’s largest life, health, asset management companies) and Nedbank Group (one of the big four banks) reporting to the Old Mutual Group CEO. Employs some 45,000 people and is highly profitable.Creating an integrated group strategy across all three businesses coupled with finding and realising cross group synergies (revenues, cost, quality and risk).Six-month secondment as CFO to sort out a very broken and dying Nedbank (2004) including what was then South Africa’s largest rights issue (R7b), putting in risk and governance processes, developing new and useful MI and cleaning up the balance sheet (the first three months were 16 hours a day, 7 days a week).Intimately involved in turning Nedbank around from 0% ROE in 2003 to 20% plus in 2007.Governance committees. Although not an “independent director” (because of my employment with Old Mutual plc) I was requested to attend and took part in all the Basle, risk, remuneration and audit committees.Conceived, set up and ran a cross society scenario planning exercise with 30 eminent South African citizens looking at the future of South Africa – see www.dinokengscenarios.co.za. Some say it laid the foundations for the National Development Plan.Built a network of South African contacts both in the private and public sector (especially in the economic cluster of government).

Not bad starting in HR as a FTSE 100 director of HR. Main activity was the BEE deal and descoping HR.

Worked on the turnaround of Nedbank.

Responsible for seeking UK acquisitions in 2003 reporting to the Group CEO leading a small team of about 10 people although led much larger “virtual” teams of around 50 people during due diligences of potential acquisitions. Facilitated and implemented group strategy process and running projects to deliver the strategy.Various ad hoc projects in support of the Group Chief Executive (internet, values, business reviews).

600,000 account holders or 300,000 customers recruited (with less than £4m pa marketing spend and a lot of PR) in three years. I understand it broke even in 2004. Multi award winner especially for service. Created, developed and sustained the brand. Voted one of the UK’s coolest brands ever. Created a sustainable customer service culture that has endured. Rated best bank for customer service in the UK by Which in the first ten years of its existence with 91% very satisfied customers - higher than First Direct which has now regained its top spot (smile is still second). Source – Consumer Association.Member of Co-operative Bank Executive Committee (when it was a bank to be proud of).Member of working party to get the bank and the insurance company co-operating.

Founded egg.com jointly with Mike Harris. From nothing to the first and biggest internet bank.In 1999 egg.com was valued at £4b in the Prudential market capitalisation (per investment analysts). It was subsequently bought by Citigroup and was broken up in the 2008 credit crunch – savings and loans to Yorkshire Building Society, credit card to Barclays, fund supermarket to Fidelity, share trading to Charles Stanley. In charge of half the business. Finance, Credit, Legal, Compliance, Internal Audit, Treasury, Funds Supermarket (the UK’s first funds supermarket), Share Trading and General Insurance businesses. Member of board, ALCO and credit committees.

Director of various life, asset management and property and casualty companies.Prudential was in 38 countries when I joined and under 10 by the time I had finished. Significant M&A and restructuring experience in many different countries. Two acquisitions in Australia.Troubleshooting issues (for example, Piper Alpha LMX spiral, P&C reserving, fraud in Israel, development of MI, successful LAUTRO rebuttal, group HO expense review, claims reserving reviews).

Progressed on the fast track and reached senior manager in 1985.Turned around loss making audit group of 50 professionals. Killed attrition of staff by creating a better working environment and a focus on training and experience.Started specialising in financial services in 1983.Led the work on rehabilitating what was then Ireland’s largest bankruptcy in 1985.Due diligence, legal claims and a variety of other special work.Worked on technical developments for C&L worldwide. Developed international insurance auditing approach and worked on ways to make audits add value to clients.Trainer for technical and personal skills courses.

Ma, Politics, Philosophy & Economics

Activities and Societies: Sport, music and friends

Education record