Karl is a business executive and lawyer having served in senior executive roles in public and private sector companies in South Africa over the last three decades. His most recent position has been with the Sanlam Group, Africa’s leading insurance and asset management business, from which he will retire with effect from 31 December 2024 having served the group in two key roles. The first as Chief Executive of the Sanlam Retail Mass business cluster for three and a half years and most recently as Group Executive (Market Development and Sustainability) since September 2020.
Prior to joining Sanlam Karl spent over two decades as a senior executive at Transnet, South Africa’s freight logistics utility group. The last eight years at Transnet he served as Chief Executive of Transnet Port Terminals, the country’s premier port management business. Earlier in his career Karl practiced as an attorney with Deneys Reitz Attorneys, predecessor to Norton Rose Fulbright. He has served as board director at companies including Investec Bank Ltd, SAAB Grintek (Pty) Ltd, Salvation Army Territorial Board, RAM Couriers (Pty) Ltd and also serves as Governor on the Board of Governors of his alma mater Rhodes University where he chairs it’s Investment Committee.
Karl holds commerce and law degrees from Rhodes University as well as business management and directorship executive education courses from Wits Business School, IMD (Lausanne) and Harvard Business School.