Dr Christo Wiese

Former Director at Pepkor and Former Chairman of Shoprite Holdings, which started out as a chain of eight supermarkets in Cape Town that was purchased for 1 million rand and grew into a multibillion-dollar business due to various acquisitions and expansion strategies made in the first 30 years of operations. After playing a role in helping Shoprite acquire distributor Senta, Wiese started expanding his business into franchising new locations for Shoprite department stores. He also purchased the struggling OK Bazaars from South African Breweries for one rand in 1997; inserting 157 supermarkets and 146 furniture stores to the company and adding jobs to the area. In 2011, Wiese’s Shoprite stores were considered to be the sixth overall favourite brand, with a third-most valued brand in terms of community upliftment in South Africa. In addition to Shoprite, Wiese owns more than 1,200 corporate outlets under various names. Shares of Shoprite rose by 50% on the South African stock market from March 2011 to March 2012.

He is the current executive director of South African retail giant Shoprite. Wiese has been chairman of Invicta Holdings Limited since 2006.