Brand Pretorius

Brand Pretorius’ talks on ‘servant leadership’ have provided invaluable insights for the hundreds of corporate audiences he has addressed as a celebrity speaker.

His book “In the Driving Seat – Lessons in Leadership” became the most popular business biography in South Africa in 2013 and it has been reprinted five times.

He attained his M.Com in Business Economics in 1972 and started his career at Toyota South Africa the next year. Following a number of management positions, he was appointed Managing Director of Toyota SA Marketing in 1988. Under his leadership Toyota became the leader in both market share and customer satisfaction. In March 1995 he joined McCarthy Motor Holdings as Chairman and CEO and was promoted to CEO of the holding company, McCarthy Retail Limited, in October 1999.

It is widely acknowledged that Brand played a pivotal role in turning McCarthy around after it was declared technically insolvent. He retired as CEO of McCarthy and as an executive director of its controlling shareholder Bidvest on 2011.

Brand has received numerous national marketing, motor industry and leadership awards including ‘Marketing Person of the Year’, ‘Automobile Man of the Year’ and ‘Boss of the Year’. He holds honorary professorships at the Universities of Johannesburg, Pretoria and the Free State and an honorary doctorate in marketing from the Durban University of Technology. Brand is a Fellow in Leadership at GIBS.

He serves on the board of  the READ Educational Trust, is vice-chairman of Business Against Crime South Africa and the National Ambassador for the Valued Citizens Initiative, as well as of the acclaimed ‘Rally to Read’ corporate social responsibility programme which he founded in 1998.

Brand serves as non-executive director on the boards of Africum, Agrinet, Tongaat Hulett, Reunert, Italtile, Metair and Tata Africa Holdings. He is also a member of the advisory boards of the Motor Industry Ombudsman of South Africa and the international consultancy firm Alexander Proudfoot.