David Weideman

Whether sipping on a fresh-grounded-bean coffee at home that I made myself, on my motorbike on a dirt road, mentoring, consulting, speaking, reading, learning something new, walking the production floor, sitting in the boardroom, or preparing a meal at home I am an unapologetic challenger of the status quo.

I have a simple principle for life, inspired by quotes from respectively Ray Dalio, Edgar Allan Poe, Theodore Roosevelt and Albert Einstein –

“To be effective you must not let your need to be right be more important than your need to find out what’s true.”

“Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see”, and find out the rest for yourself.

Then “do what you can with what you have where you are” and, never forget that “insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results”.

With thirty two years’ experience in banking – Treasury, Global Markets, Investment Banking, I have first-hand experience in a plethora of business fields and am as comfortable in the boardroom as in the canteen.

Spending twenty-two years of my career in South Africa and nine years experiencing fourteen countries in Africa, I grew a particular awareness of the impact decision-making has on businesses in multiple industries and cultures.

As a Challenger of The Status Quo of all things business, a permanent student and enthusiast of the brain & decision-making and a Business Owner and Investor, I enjoy asking the unwanted questions, getting to the “real issues”.

As a student of futures studies – I have a Post Graduate Diploma in Futures Studies from Stellenbosch Business School (and an uncompleted MBA – I didn’t hand in my dissertation, stupid I know) – I know the value and importance of short term decisions on long term outcomes.

I have learned that “It always seems impossible until it’s done” (Nelson Mandela), but we have to know what future we want.

Knowing the future we want is the North Star we need to keep us on track to make better decisions today.