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Founder: Benji Coetzee
Strategist, entrepreneur, author

Day in and day out, I’m constantly taking on new and interesting projects that help me build my personal brand. From industry-related tasks to unusual and sporadic opportunities, each experience I’ve had has turned me into who I am today. Have a look at everything I’ve done, and send any questions my way.

Benji Coetzee Technologist
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A dynamic, energetically intentional polymath with an insatiable curiosity for transformational change professionally & personally. A nuanced blend of blue technical personality with a fascination for human behavior & psychology to enable high performing teams.

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I have enjoyed 13+ years of global specialized experience in high performance environments such as strategy consulting, investment banking, private equity, telco, digital tech scaling at leading companies [Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Singular Group, HSBC Africa, Vodafone & Ziggo (Liberty Global)] across South Africa, Switzerland, UAE & the Netherlands.

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A strong entrepreneurial mindset with proven track-record to innovatively outperform on promised ROI expectations of shareholders. An uncanny ability to leverage a broad range of experience in visioning, architecting, designing & delivering on complex programmes to bring tangible value. Digitally dexterous in developing, presenting & implementing complete end-to-end commercial, technical & cultural roadmaps.

Listed a Forbes Top60 woman leader in technology, I actively nurture a collaborative culture for cross-functional teams in matrix organisations during transformations. I bring board diversity & empathetically ease digital insecurities prevalent in traditional board committees.

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Golden threads: Digital Native, Value Engineer, Transformational Architect

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On target: T-shaped Executive Officer; Commercial, Digital, Data, Finance, Strategy.

Summary

Executive Vice President, Growth and Change, KPN, May 2022- current, Amsterdam, Netherlands

  • KPN is a listed leading Telco, with over 150 years of history & total revenues north of €6bn.

  • Responsible to identify, define & steer strategies for customer excellence and ARPA growth beyond legacy portfolio.

  • Accountable for allocation of Capex (€140m), innovation & IT service roadmap (€60m) to unlock best value objectives.

  • Facilitates the management of complex projects from idea to delivery, paired with implementing value tracking.

  • Inspires creative thinking to change to a digital operating model for simplicity to customer & cost reduction.

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Tribe Lead Digital Channels (Digital Director), VodafoneZiggo, December 2019 – April 2022,  Utrecht, Netherlands

  • VodafoneZiggo is a joint venture of Vodafone Group & Liberty Global - a leading telco.

  • Transformed, grew & stabilised the digital (100FTE+) department, with E2E responsibility of all digital channels for sales, service & all front-end infra assets.

  • Defined the long-term vision of digital offerings with concise roadmaps & product lifecycle decisions, i.e., identification & evaluation of internal digital capabilities, innovations & external opportunities for B2C & B2B.

  • Conceptualized & implemented cloud migration & content management project.

  • Ensures predictable time to market embracing agile way of work, nurtures expansive ecosystems & interfaces.

  • Owns the investment portfolio, with digital asset life cycle management with business outcomes of the digital channels.

  • Reports to Exco; Manages 19 direct reports; [11 multi-domain Product Leads, 5 functional sub-units & 3 COE’s; Visual design, Content, CRO, Data & Analytics, Development Engineering, Testing & Release MGMT; Portfolio MGMT (asset, supplier & resource mgmt.), Platform MGMT (Architecture, Infra, Security & Devops), UX, etc.]

 

Venture Investment Advisor at Calibre Capital, May 2019 – ongoing, Pretoria, South Africa

  • Calibre is an independent, highly respected private equity investment company.

  • Scout, foster & ensure strategic value enhancement from (alternative) growth ventures. 

  • Ventures explored; vegan baking tech, organic skincare app, peer-to-peer delivery & payment cart, plastic-free shopping.

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Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Empty Trips, January 2017 – September 2019, Johannesburg, South Africa

  • Ideated, designed & developed an enterprise (B2B) freight marketplace software solution which leverages spacial directional algorithms with real time analytics, machine learning & automation to better match empty spaces to cargo.

  • As the founder - the role was dynamic, demanding & fulfilling. Responsibilities E2E from product design (model, tech architecture), legal structuring, cyber security, compliance, IP-offshoring, rapid multi-supplier identification/ integration, open-source acceleration, adaptive go-to-market planning, organisational growth, performance-driven SAFe culture, financial engineering (VC- backed), board governance, deal negotiation etc.

  • Successfully innovated the business model & solution with an additional platform for revenue diversification. Ideated, designed & developed the solution named Surefox; now SureCargo. Native solution for underwriters - offers insurance to commercial customers/ brokers instantly, transforming manual traditional facultative service to a multi- channel automated simple solution based on MACH principles. IP exited to Santova B.V.  Apr’19.

  • EmptyTrips exit via asset & IP sale to Vector Logistics part of Remgro, a diversified investment company – close Sep’19.

Experience

Timeline

Benji Career timeline
Benji Singularity

Founder & Strategic Architect, Seedpitch Advisory, November 2016 – April 2019, JHB, South Africa

  • Advisory using alternative frameworks, data analytics & behavioral science for strategic planning & value engineering.

  • Entity created to bootstrap startup Empty Trips until VC raise completed November’2018. Remain advisor; ad-hoc.

  • Ability to position frameworks, orchestrate teams & originate workable interim structures to achieve fast results.

  • Example projects: Revolutionary mobile in-store lending app for leading micro-finance credit provider - (active) prototype all built through a UI/UX studio of an opensource digital factory in Kenya, portfolio model developed for real-time insight into tracking multi-billion commercial property development projects of Saudi Family office.

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Senior Project Manager, Singular Group, March 2016 – November 2016, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

  • Singular is an international strategy & investment consulting company across industries.

  • Largely focused on strategic value engineering from M&A, joint ventures or synergistic partnerships.

  • Example projects: Led a complex multi-country asset portfolio divestment programme of an industrial group, redefinition of respective asset management (lifecycle) strategies, designed “Innovation Delta” framework.

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Senior Consultant, The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), October 2012 - February 2016, JHB, South Africa

  • BCG is one of the leading top-tier management strategy consulting firms of the world across sectors.

  • Projects managed: Operating model redesign of commodity trader, organizational restructuring & workforce planning of SOE, cost optimisation & process re-engineering of diamond MineCo, turnaround of development bank, M&A FMCG.

  • A comprehensive role demanding analytical finesse, presentation excellence, complex multi-stakeholder management expertise, dedication, ability to work independently, whilst ensuring consistent measurable impact for clients.

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Project Manager Africa Infrastructure, World Economic Forum, June 2014 – June 2015, Geneva, Switzerland

  • Seconded from BCG to facilitate acceleration of the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA - NEPAD).

  • The role focused on the $5.5bn Central Rail Corridor managing a 50+ business working group (Private, NGO & gov).

  • Enabled the conclusion of a tri-partite agreement, alongside clear tooling for project selection for value investing.

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Corporate Finance Analyst, HSBC Africa, November 2011 – October 2012, JHB, South Africa

  • HSBC Africa is the African head office of the international bank, focusing on corporate & investment banking only.

  • Quantitative & qualitative analysis of corporate portfolio worked directly with deal makers for origination & valuations.

  • Received global recognition for a scenario-based automated covenant trigger model developed.

**October 2010 – October 2011, completing second Masters’ degree in Germany

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Marine Risk Consultant, Hollard Insurance (Etana), November 2008 – September 2010, JHB, South Africa

  • International marine risk underwriting to enable the African transport book growth from 0 to ZAR500m in 18 months. 

  • Coordinated complex insurance negotiations, grew experience in customized insurance, risk mgmt, & claim adjudication.

  • Actively managed a large portfolio of clients across Resources (Gold), Telco, Chemicals, Retail & FMCG.

*** references from all employers readily available on request

Acknowledgements

Education

  • Master of Law (LLM) Finance, Institute of Law & Finance, Goethe University, 2010 – 2011, Germany.

  • Master of Philosophy (MPhil) Maritime Economics, University of Stellenbosch, 2008 – 2009, South Africa.

  • Bachelor of Commerce (BCom) Financial Management, University of Stellenbosch, 2005 – 2007, South Africa.

  • Positive Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, 2021.

  • Diploma Behavioral Design, SUE Behavioral Design Academy, 2022, Netherlands.

  • Diploma Neuropsychology, Centre of Excellence, 2021, United Kingdom (CMA registered).

  • Diploma Nudging & Behavioural Insights, INudgeYou – Applied Behavioural Science Group, 2020, Denmark.

  • Certified ScrumMaster®; expires 9.10.2021.

  • Exponential Executive Programme, Singularity University, 2019, United States of America.

  • Behavioural Economics, Johannesburg Business School, University of Johannesburg, 2019, South Africa.

Personal

  • Languages: Native English (eloquent communicator) & fluent Afrikaans, basic Dutch.

  • Personality attributes: Passionate, empathetic, energetic, humble, committed.

  • Hobbies: Competitive dressage riding, reading (booklist), writing (blog), psychology, seeing & tasting the world.

  • Personal: South African citizen, Dutch resident, Female.

Top skills

  • Communication

  • Frameworking & Critical Problem Solving

  • Digital Design with Data Visualization

  • Project Management

  • Investment Management

  • ​Lifecycle (asset) management

  • Matrix Complexity Management

  • Prototyping & Experimentation

  • Digital Marketing Excellence (UX, SEO, Social)

  • Decision making

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