Barry Van Der Westhuizen

• Created annual budget and developed comprehensive plan to accomplish company objectives while staying within budget.
• Focused teams on developing innovative and cutting-edge approaches at all levels with effective resource allocation and strategic planning.
• Implemented a turn around strategy, transforming the company from a stock heavy wholesaler of golf wear to a turn key operation with a customer centric focus
• Developed and implemented a new e-commerce strategy and new sales approach using a lean approach and up skilling of personnel

Worked closely all stakeholders at an EXCO level to ensure smooth integration of procedures and to maintain a strong team approach to the ongoing growth of the company.

Developed and implemented a strategic plan to take the company from a corporate owned subsidiary to a fully fledged private institution. Including the accreditation process with the department of higher education as a recognized business school.

Served on the EXCO and worked closely with shareholders and stakeholders.

Managed using a strong team approach.

Restructured the company and led a team in the re-design and implementation of new corporate offerings in line with the strategy of the company.

Built on existing strategy to aimed at making GIMT the first fully black owned business school with an MBA in southern Africa. Developed a strategic and marketing plans to expand the client base and establish the school’s presence.

Head of Milpark business responsible for the new strategic planning and growth of the business school. Facilitated the integration of the Damelin M.B.A into the Milpark M.B.A programme. Designed and implemented a full strategic plan including marketing and sales plan and a drive to hire top level academics. Worked with a team to get MBS accredited as an M.B.A provider.

Served on the Group EXCO to represent Milpark.

Worked closely with all stakeholders to ensure full integration of the strategies.

Gave extensive talks at symposiums and on radio and the press on the future of the M.B.A in a changing south Africa as well as gave talks on ethics, The king 3 report, strategic planning, entrepreneurship, Conflict resolution, leadership development, project management and change management.

The highlight of my time spent here was Milpark Business School being ranked amongst the top four business schools in South Africa.

Director and shareholder in Protea sports. This was initially a bespoke glove manufacturing company which offered the opportunity to turn into a leading embroidery company.

Given the ebb in demand for bespoke gloves in South Africa I seized the opportunity to import industrial embroidery machines from Japan and over the next thirteen years the company consistently grew in size application and speciality becoming one of the top embroidery companies in Gauteng.

My stay here gave me the opportunity to be involved in all aspect of hands on management from labour issues, financing, strategy operations and the like.

This combined with my extensive academic lecturing formed a very strong base for me going forward

• Assessed credit risk and analyzed financial statements.

Credit analyst for Edgars.

Member of the credit analysis team that developed the online scoring tool for credit applications throughout the group.

Key performance areas including moving annual bad debt and implementation measures to remedy lagging areas in the Sales House chain nationally.

Implementation and training of software for the credit scoring model nationally.

Real time analysis and forecasting of the effectiveness and efficiency of the model, testing the goodness of fit using the KS tests.

Reporting trends and analysis to the Sales House directors.