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FMI Corporate
 Intro
History & Background
Vision & Strategic Intent
Why Choose Us?
 Senior Management
Indlela Project
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The Board
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Willem Smith
Chairman
Willem brings with him an abundance of experience from the mining, banking and insurance industries. Since 1995 Willem has held senior positions at Anglo Platinum, Standard bank, Medscheme Capital and WesBank. During 2007, Willem was approached by Sanlam to assist in creating a direct short-term insurance entity called MiWay as Chief Operating Officer and executive director. Willem holds a B.Com, B.Com Honours degree in financial management and a Masters degree in Business Leadership. Willem hopes that his business experience and educational background will help guide FMI to new levels.
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Brad Toerien
Chief Executive Officer
Joined FMI in 2003 in the Product Development Department and has since embedded a product development cycle that focuses on customer needs and market trends. Brad has an Actuarial Science degree and is a member of the Actuarial Society of Southern Africa. Brad officially took over the position of CEO in the last quarter of 2008. As CEO, Brad’s aim is to ensure that FMI positions itself as a leading product provider of income protection benefits through a product design that is transparent and an innovative service offering.
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Simon Cordial
Company Secretary
Is a B.Comm graduate with a work history including corporate project design of accounting and financial systems for De Beers. In addition he has 14 years direct involvement in the insurance industry and is a co-founder of FMI.
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Lucia Kujawa
Non executive Director
Has a Business Science Honours degree from U.C.T., a Chartered Management Accountant degree and an MBA though the University of Henley. Her experience includes heading up the I.S. Project team at De Beers Namaqualand Division before moving into the accounting field. Lucia is a co-founder of FMI and has occupied an executive role since FMI’s inception in 1995. Lu continues to sit on FMI’s board as a Non-executive Director.
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Peter Cordial
Non Executive Director
Has 49 years of financial work experience, including working as a bank manager for Lloyds and Nedbank; owning and running several small businesses; establishing the Natal Branch of First Bowring and owning an independent brokerage for 22 years.
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Johnny Symmonds
Non Executive Director
Johnny is currently the Managing Director of Lombard Insurance Company Ltd. He started his career in 1991 as a senior manager of Deloitte & Touche, London and in 1997 Johnny became partner in charge of the Financial Institutions Services Team. Johnny moved into the Hollard Group in 1999 as a Director of Hollard Holdings (Pty) Ltd and was then appointed as the Chief Executive Officer of the Mercantile Lisbon Bank Holdings in 2003. Johnny is a qualified Chartered Accountant and a Bcom, BCom Honours graduate from UCT.
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Conrad Backeberg
Non Executive Director
Conrad holds a B.Sc. and B.Sc. Honours degree from the University of Cape Town, majoring in Mathematical Statistics, Actuarial Science and Operations Research. He qualified as a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries in the UK and a Fellow of the Actuarial Society of South Africa in 1988.As a Certified Financial Planner, he has 27 years of business and actuarial consulting experience in the South African financial services industry. For the last 14 years, Conrad has headed up life and health reinsurance operations for Gen Re and RGA respectively in Africa, as well as direct life insurance and asset management operations in South Africa as Head of Medscheme Financial Services (Pty) Ltd. His most recent executive leadership position was that of Managing Director for RGA Reinsurance Company of South Africa Ltd until end March 2009. Currently, Conrad is an independent business and actuarial consultant as well as an independent director of companies.
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The Executive
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Brad Toerien
Chief Executive Officer
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Tim Maxwell
Chief Marketing Officer
Tim joined FMI in February 2009 after gaining a number of years of experience in the FMCG and logistics industries where he was involved as a project manager and as a business development manager. Tim holds a B.Comm in Marketing and a B.Comm Honours in Strategic Management both from RAU (now University of Johannesburg). At FMI Tim is responsible for developing and executing the company’s overall marketing strategy, positioning and branding for all of our products nationally.
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Simone Thompson
Chief Strategy Officer
Simone holds a B.Comm degree majoring in Information Technology and Business Information Systems from the University of Natal and is also a qualified Chartered Marketer with the Institute of Marketing London. She spent 5 years working in both the Risk department for the NHS and the Strategy & Marketing team at an International Trade Advisory Service in London. After having joined FMI in early 2006, Simone was commissioned with the establishment of both the marketing and product development departments at FMI. Simone is now responsible for the company’s R&D area which forms the foundation for the product development cycle as well as driving the company’s medium term strategic vision.
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Greg Ross
Chief Operating Officer
Greg is a B.Com Accounting honours degree graduate from the University of KZN and a Chartered Management Accountant. He joined FMI in 2006 and has since been involved in various project based work, product development and operational risk assessment. Greg is responsible for aligning the day to day operations of the company with the overall business strategy, as well as managing the cash and investment strategies.
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Dennis Booysen
Chief Risk Officer
Dennis has over 26 years experience in the insurance industry, with a strong re-insurance background. Before joining FMI, he spent the last 8 years consulting for various big life insurance companies. Dennis joined FMI early in 2008 as the Head of Operations and Underwriting. Currently, Dennis oversees FMI’s underwriting, claims and actuarial functions as our Chief Risk Officer and works with each of FMI’s business units to establish, maintain and continuously improve risk management capabilities.
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Stuart Cumming
Chief Distribution Officer
Stuart joined FMI in May 2010 and brings with him 13 years of experience in the insurance industry. He worked for Sage Life from 1997 to 2006 and worked for Medscheme Life from 2006 to 2010. He completed a 3 year Marketing Diploma through The Institute of Marketing Management in 2003. At Sage Life, Stuart fulfilled dual roles, one being a traditional broker branch manager and the other being the national outsourced broker network manager, both reporting within the Broker Division. Thereafter he moved to Medscheme Life where he was the General Manager for Sales and Marketing. As FMI’s Chief Distribution Officer, Stuart’s role entails full responsibility for the distribution of FMI products. This comprises fine tuning FMI’s existing distribution channels to become more efficient as well as finding new channels to distribute our products.
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Management Team
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Sacchin Maharaj
Head of: Projects
Sacchin joined FMI in 2000 in the Finance Department where he started off as a broker administrator. Over the years, he has gained a thorough knowledge of financial systems and has been involved in many of the developments at FMI. After establishing the project culture at FMI, he was asked to extend his responsibility to the entire Information Systems area. This grew into a passion for systems development which made him well suited for the project management position. In February 2010 Sacchin was appointed as the Head of Projects where his skills will be well utilized. His current role entails managing all company projects, facilitating progress on projects, identifying obstacles and creating solutions.
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Wendy P Nevin
Head of: Services
Wendy joined FMI in 2004 after having been in the financial industry for 18 years. She brings with her extensive knowledge and insight on client’s needs and expectations in terms of service delivery and is passionate about ensuring that FMI is set apart from other organisations by their high level of service. In addition, Wendy has many years experience as a Training Facilitator and has been involved in the Behavioural and Technical training of both staff and financial advisers. Currently Wendy oversees both the Client Care and Client Services teams, as well as the Quality assessor who assures that all tele-based communication is FAIS compliant and most importantly representative of the values and culture that FMI strives to portray.
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Maarten van der Vijver
Head of: National Distribution
Maarten has over 20 years experience in the financial services industry with a strong Life insurance background. He’s worked in sales and business development management for several of the top 5 Life assures with a particular focus and success in the Western Cape. He relocated to Durban and joined FMI in 2009 and is responsible for National Distribution. Maarten aims to enhance the physical distribution capability of FMI nationally by growing a professional and service orientated sales force, offering value to Financial Advisers and thereby forging strong partnerships.
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Lee-Anne Ibbetson
Head of: Underwriting
Lee-Anne Ibbetson with over 21 years in underwriting experience joins us as FMI’s Head of Underwriting. Lee-Anne has strong background in reassurance and has previously worked with 3 of the insurance industry’s big players. As a vibrant energetic individual, Lee-Anne is keen to contribute towards FMI relations as a service department and relishes inter-departmental interactions. We look forward to her applied skills adding high value to FMI’s risk base while refining our underwriting philosophy.
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Michael D Shongwe
Head of: Claims
Michael joined FMI in January 2009, after being in the Life and Health Insurance for 17 years specializing in Underwriting, Claims and Forensic Underwriting. He is now responsible for maintaining the FMI philosophy of ensuring that we pay valid claims. Michael aims to ensure that the claiming process and related documentation is in order to ensure a flawless, efficient and transparent claims process. With his team, Michael has a drive for exceptional client services and will make sure that all claims are handled with respect, urgency and that all decisions are communicated effectively.
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Simon Cordial
Head of: Corporate Social Responsibility
In addition to being one of FMI’s shareholders and company secretary, Simon heads up FMI’s Corporate Social Responsibility initiative with Indlela. FMI actively supports Indlela in multiple ways, firstly through direct financial contributions to the Fair Havens Home for abandoned babies and secondly through the daily involvement of Simon on the Indlela Management Team, as Co-ordinator of the Indlela Feeding Program, and as Fundraising co-ordinator for Indlela.
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Wikus Joubert
Head of: Legal and Compliance
Wikus joined FMI in May 2010 as the Head of Legal and Compliance. Wikus is a qualified attorney with an LLB obtained in 2006 through UNISA. This was followed by a post graduate diploma in Financial Planning that he obtained in 2007. Wikus is a Certified Financial Planner® and worked at Old Mutual for seven years where he was a Senior Broker Consultant. He then moved to Strauss Daly Attorneys for three and a half years where he practised as an attorney. Wikus' aim is to ensure that FMI’s interests are protected at all times and that the company complies with the rules and best practices of the industry.
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