• Youth

Striving for nothing but success

Schalk Burger attended Suiderhof Primary School and thereafter went to Windhoek High School. He was fortunate to receive a bursary from Ernst & Young to study at Stellenbosch University. After university, he worked for Ernst & Young for about three years, predominantly in the internal audit field, after which an opportunity came up at Pupkewitz’s Motor Division, where he worked from 2016 to 2021. He started off as the Pupkewitz Motor Division internal auditor and worked his way up to being the general manager of Pupkewitz Auto.

Burger was recently appointed as the general manager of Dulux Namibia. Together with his team, they are responsible for building the business throughout Namibia and ensuring Dulux places as one of the top paint brands in the country.

“We need to provide the best paint solution to all our clients’ various needs. Basically, ensuring that the right product reaches the right clients within the right time and price,” Burger added. He believes that his past experience and value system has given him a good foundation. However, he is still learning and growing every day, he said.

Careers asked Burger what his day-to-day workload looks like, and Burger said: “I am lucky enough to have a fantastic team that understands our strategy and direction of the company and have the ability to execute this strategy. Thus, my day comprises of engaging with the team, highlighting key focus areas, engaging with key customers and stakeholders, working on process and product offering enhancements, ensuring operations are aligned to our strategic goals, and obviously having fun and coffee while doing it”.

In his new position, Burger has faced some challenges. Due to vast geographical area of Namibia and the various market requirements within it, providing each area with unrivalled service is difficult and remains so. To overcome this, they are in the process of extending their team to ensure excellent service delivery can be received throughout Namibia. They also need to build on their strong distribution networks to help them achieve this goal, he said.

Asked what advice he would give to the aspiring youth, he said: “Always see the opportunity to learn something – none of us are perfect but a purposeful effort to continue improving yourself makes a big difference. Endeavour – be relentless in the pursuit of your goals. Break them down into smaller pieces and execute. Prioritise and execute. Always act with integrity. Do the right things right”.