Foundry and engineering company Thos Begbie & Co announced a number of changes to its senior management last month, including the retirement of company joint CEO Edwin Dreyer and MD Eugene Rossouw.

Joubert Groenewald replaces Rossouw as MD, while outgoing sales director Harry Muller is replaced by current sales manager Piet du Preez, and finance director Anton Meerkotter by current financial manager Gabriel Sekgwele. Du Preez and Sekgwele will maintain their respective functions as sales manager and financial manager.

Thos Begbie & Co human relations director David Fundzane continues in that position. Finally, Isaac Mogoba has been appointed foundry director and continues to manage the foundry as before.

Dreyer highlights that the Thos Begbie group, which was founded in 1887, has accumulated a significant amount of intellectual property over the years that is vested in the people who have been working for the company.

He highlights that many employees have been working for decades for the company, some as long as 40 years, and are approaching retirement age. To ensure that their engineering and technical expertise is not lost, it is important for the company to develop a succession plan to identify competent replacements who could continue the company’s success.

“To find people in our industry who are experienced is almost impossible. “People with competency in manufacturing foundries, moulds and core technology is very rare,” Dreyer notes, adding that the company invests significantly in its employees to ensure it retains its manufacturing and engineering competences.

“We are on a constant programme of identifying talent to grow and developing that talent through training,” he says.
To ensure that it maintains excellence in senior management, Thos Begbie had a succession plan in place to identify talented employees in sales, manufacturing, finance and engineering. Candidates were selected and trained, which resulted in the identification of Groenewald, Mogoba, Du Preez, Fundzane and Sekgwele being appointed to the board of Thos Begbie & Co.

“It is now time to allow for a new generation of bright young stars to run the business,” says Dreyer.