Flourishing in a new career path

Monque Adams
Wetumwene Shikage

Victor Shikomba is a consultant at Alexander Forbes Financial Services. He was born and raised in Windhoek and went to People’s Primary School from grade 1-3 and Van Rhyn Primary School for grade 4-7. He did his secondary schooling at Windhoek Technical High School (HTS) and tertiary education at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST), then known as the Polytechnic of Namibia, where he pursued studies in information technology: business computing.

He joined Alexander Forbes in September 2012 as the project champion for AF Online and moved over to consulting in September 2015. He left AF briefly before returning in September 2019.

As a benefit/relationship consultant, his responsibilities include managing and retaining a portfolio of corporate clients. He works closely with trustees and management committees of pension funds.

“We arrange and manage trustee and management committee meetings; we facilitate and coordinate with different departments in order to achieve deliverables for our clients; we provide technical and investment advice to our clients and make sure that we are always updated and compliant with the legislation. This is all pension funds. I have a team of junior consultants that manage and assist with executing these tasks,” he says.

Career paths often become tricky. One of the toughest decisions he had to make was leaving his IT background and taking on consulting in pension funds. “They are two totally different industries, but it is a decision I do not regret at all,” he says.

In the same breath, he says that being able to successfully switch from an IT industry to a financial industry was one of his greatest accomplishments. He was able to prove to himself that he can do anything he puts his mind to.

A typical day in the office includes preparing for and attending trustee/management committee meetings. After meetings, he checks in with his team to ensure that they carry out action items.

“We proactively identify client issues and provide solutions. We need to make sure that our clients feel valued and are always happy. It is a very interesting industry; you learn something new every day,” he says.

Shikomba loves tech gadgets, travelling and working around the house. “I am THE DIY guy! I am generally inspired by hardworking people, especially those that are working to making a difference. You should meet some of my colleagues.”

He believes that if youif you do something right the first time, you will never have to do it again. “Have a plan and make it work. If you believe, you can achieve,” he says.

With future plans to become an expert on pension funds, there are two things close to his heart: the exploitation of African resources which is not beneficial to Africans, and customer service in our country.