Tell me about MortgageMarket and the services it offers.
We are fintech marketplace for home loans that enables consumers, property developers and estate agents to get access to all the lending banks in South Africa with a single online application. We also provide marketing, lending and insurance as part of an integrated vertical of services.
What does your job entail?
In general my job is to set the company culture, strategic direction and enable my team to execute on a daily basis. I do this daily by working on the biggest challenges we face, from customer service delivery to improving product design through technology enhancements.
How did you end up doing this?
I started out in banking in 2007 when I got an opportunity to manage Nedbank’s digital assets, namely its website, online marketing and product sales. This was before the start of social media as we know it and when South Africa’s internet penetration was less than 10%. Since then, I completed an MBA and focused my thesis on understanding the barriers to internet penetration in retail banking and I used the insights from my research to launch South Africa’s first online home loan channel.
What makes you good at what you do?
I try to focus on understanding problems worth solving that can make a meaningful impact on the lives of consumers and businesses. Then I focus on executing them relentlessly to make the potential a reality.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
The freedom to make real change each day and deal with problems worth solving. We have a major housing crisis in South Africa, so getting citizens access to finances and the education to enable them to sustain being a homeowner excites me each day and gives me a lot of motivation to continue to create more homeowners in South Africa and Namibia.
What did you want to be when you were a child?
As a child I wasn’t exposed to a lot of what the world had to offer, but I remember seeing an airplane for the first time and wanting to know how to build one. So being a builder of things has always fascinated me. Later I learnt about companies and how to build them and this has been my passion ever since.
What do you look for when recruiting people for your team?
Recruiting the right people is the single most important part of a business’s success. I’m constantly looking to recruit people who have a strong drive to learn continuously and who want to succeed for themselves. The best people to recruit are people that are focused on personal mastery each day.
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