Rob Kelso

Rob Kelso is the chief executive officer of SA Home Loans. He is a proud ‘Durban boy’ who was schooled at Westville Boys High School and then studied for a BCom at University of Natal, Howard College campus. He qualified as a chartered accountant in 2001, completing articles at the Deloitte Durban office and thereafter spent two and a half years in the audit and consulting practice.

Rob has been with SA Home Loans for 19 years and during this time has worked across the breadth of the organisation including ten years as the chief financial officer. In this position he focused on entrenching and diversifying the securitisation and funding platform of the business, which he says is ’the life blood of what we do’. Rob then moved into the chief operating officer role, where he spent five years looking after the broader operations across the group, before being appointed CEO in 2021.

His role is to execute on the strategy of the business across the SA Home Loans group, which includes the home loan, short term insurance and life insurance pillars.

CHANGING LIVES
Its unique position as a Durban based financial services head office and a national pioneer in the securitisation markets is, said Rob, what attracted him to SA Home Loans. “It was a rare opportunity in Durban to get into a business, which was in financial services, in the debt capital market side, and which was pioneering and offering an investment banking type of career.”

Much of Rob’s career with SA Home Loans has been driven and inspired by the positive impact that the business has on people’s lives, especially first-time home owners. “Our mission statement is about changing lives; it’s about creating home ownership for all South Africans. That is a purpose which really resonates with me and has taken me a step beyond investment banking and accounting into a business where I feel we have a daily impact on our clients and the people around us.”

In addition, as a corporate citizen, SA Home Loans prides itself on being an active and positive role model to the people and the communities it serves, which is equally important to him.

On a professional level Rob counts among his accomplishments his participation in the team that built the SA Home Loans business from a small ‘newcomer’ into an established player in the national housing market and widely recognised as the preeminent securitisation issuer in the country.

CAREER DEFINING MOMENT
Rob says that the biggest career challenge he has faced was the global financial crisis back in 2009 and 2010, which had a profound impact on SA Home Loans, a relatively small, non-bank lender at the time.

“The global financial markets were in turmoil and liquidity was really tough to come by. As a young newly appointed CFO that was a career defining moment in terms of the pressures and the lessons learned. But while stressful at the time, invaluable in terms of moulding and forging a way forward. Crisis often does teach the best lessons, and I look back at that period and say it was unpleasant, but for the business and personally, it was a hugely valuable growth experience.”

While every business has its tough patches, the property market is cyclical so there is a continual need to motivate and keep people focused within the business. “As a team, good times are easy, the tough times are where the true mettle shows. If you build a team that trusts each other, who trusts the journey you’re on and doesn’t start to question the strategy or the direction as soon as things get tough, that’s a big step in terms of managing and getting through obstacles,” explained Rob.

In addition, SA Home Loans are believers in ensuring that everybody is engaged in the business operations. “We’ve obviously had a number of challenges in KZN and South Africa in recent years where we as a business had to come together. If you as a management team are seen as present and engaged, that gives people the confidence to ride out those tough periods.”

SA Home Loans are true believers in KZN’s potential as an employment and lifestyle destination of choice in the country. Rob said, ‘We are that rare animal with a financial services head office here in KZN, and the potential is enormous. We have the skill sets, there are people who live here and who want to live here. The question is, ‘How do we get everyone to work together to reclaim that space?”

A ROLE MODEL
Rob is guided to achieve by a number of principles. At a personal level he is inspired by the people closest to him and strives to act in a way that is admired and respected by his family and those around him, and which is true to his faith – no matter the role.

To accomplish these goals, the best advice Rob has adopted is to ‘Be true to yourself’ and to be consistent and authentic in all avenues of life. “It’s great to have role models and people you look up to who have been successful. However, if you’re going to be successful, you can’t emulate others or be something that you’re not. In leadership that is a principle I hold quite close. I need to present in my professional career as I am in my personal life, so be true to my values, my morals, and my frameworks. An important cornerstone for me is to be able to say I deliver that in every aspect of life.”

He believes in the power of asking the question ‘what is best?’. “What is the best about the person we work with? What is the best about the country where I live? I think that changes the narrative somewhat. There’s a lot to be positive about if you slip through the negativity, which I think we should all be looking to unlock,” concluded Rob.