Jan van der Walt

Chief Executive Officer: Corporate Renewal Solutions

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Contact details

Email address:

Cell: +27 82 853 1414

Land line: +27 11 477 4414

Fax line: +27 86 510 6184

Jan van der Walt's areas of effectiveness

Jan is a turnaround management, business rescue, business transformation and general management consulting specialist.

In turnarounds and business rescue, his key competency is turnaround viability assessment, and project managing emergency management, crisis stabilisation, restructuring in strategic, financial, organisational and operational terms, and recovery.

Instead of or in addition to project managing turnarounds, Jan specialises in acting as interim manager of turnaround situations in the capacity of managing director or chief executive officer, or as deputy to these positions.

In business transformation, Jan's key competency is designing business transformation projects and implementing these as project manager and change management agent.

In management consulting Jan's key competencies lie in strategy, leadership, financial and organisational issues, supply chain management, and sales and marketing. These all form important components of turnarounds and business transformation projects.

Jan also focuses on strategy consulting as an area of specialisation, especially strategy workshops.

Jan van der Walt's background and experience

As CEO of Corporate Renewal Solutions, Jan van der Walt has 26 years' experience in corporate renewal, ranging from management consulting to business transformation to turnaround management to business rescue.

In his career he served as both senior accountable executive and in advisory positions in numerous turnaround and crisis management situations in a variety of industries.

He has wide experience in devising and implementing leadership, strategy, financial, organisational and operational solutions.

His interest in turnaround management started during his early consulting days when he conducted assignments at distressed companies.

After subsequently cutting his teeth for many years as interim turnaround manager in various companies, he returned to the consulting world by joining an international consulting firm to manage business transformation projects.

This experience as a principal consultant allowed him to combine turnaround line management expertise with multidisciplinary project management and transformational change management, resulting in the establishment of a turnaround management consulting firm in 1999.

The turnaround consultancy went independent in 2002 as Corporate Renewal Partners. In 2006 Corporate Renewal Partners name was changed to Corporate Renewal Solutions.

Jan van der Walt's qualifications

Presently busy completing a Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) at the Gordon Institute of Management Science of the University of Pretoria, where his research interest is predicting business rescue resolution. He has passed the first year of Directed Learning and achieved the top exam marks in class.
MBA (Stanford Business School), where he studied with a Fulbright Scholarship and specialised in strategy.
Honours B.Sc. in Operations Research (University of South Africa).
B.Sc. Industrial Engineering degree (cum laude) (University of Pretoria).

Jan van der Walt's industry activities

Recent papers and presentations

Date	Topic
7 Dec 09	King III Final Report: The requirements and implications for public, private and non-profit organisations (222k). Cape Town. "Final recommendations for Business Rescue procedures"
5 Nov 09	Women in Management and Leadership Conference (243k). "New business rescue legislation as per Chapter 6 of the new Companies Act"
14 Oct 09	Audit, Risk and Governance Summit '09 (501k). "New business rescue legislation as per Chapter 6 of the new Companies Act"
29 Sep 09	King III Final Report: The requirements and implications for public, private and non-profit organisations (91k). Johannesburg. "Final recommendations for Business Rescue procedures"
16 Sep	Leadership excellence and corporate governance conference (1120k)
18 to 20 Aug 09	Business rescue: Demystified and Operationalised (422k).
30 Jul 09	Corporate Governance Forum 2009: (269k). "Analysing the importance of business rescue legislation and its implications for your company"
09-03-07	A corporate conversation on business rescue (167k) or A corporate conversation on business rescue (105k).
08-08-07	Business rescue legislation comments which constitutes TMA-SA's submission to dti on the business rescue provisions of Chapter 6 of the Companies Act (B61 - 2008)
08-07-30	Business rescue legislation - a turnaround practitioner’s perspective on changes in B61-2008 compared to the 2007 draft - Business rescue panel discussion, Turnaround Management Association - Southern Africa.
08-07-29	Business rescue legislation - implications for companies and directors - Corporate Governance conference.
08-05-12	Turnaround situations (Wits Business School turnaround management conference)
07-05-15	Turnaround situations (Wits Business School turnaround management conference) (591k)
07-05-03	Business rescue process - Business rescue panel discussion, Turnaround Management Association - Southern Africa (140k).
07-03-30	Business rescue legislation comments which constitutes TMA-SA's submission to dti on the business rescue provisions of Chapter 6 of the Companies Act 2007 (772k).
06-11-04	Improving turnaround and business rescue in South Africa - how government can contribute, and how TMA-SA can assist - presentation to National Treasury and Department of Trade and Industry (588k).
06-11-04	Overview of the Turnaround Management Association - Southern Africa (545k).
06-09-06	Implications of new business rescue legislation for private equity in South Africa (Private Equity Africa 2006 conference) (556k).
06-05-15	Contrasting informal turnaround with turnaround during insolvency 2006 (Wits Business School turnaround management conference) (770k).
06-05-15	Developments in the South African turnaround industry 2006 (Wits Business School turnaround management conference) (326k).

King III Committee on Corporate Governance

Jan is a member of the Business Rescue Subcommittee of the King III Commission on Governance. He made a substantial contribution towards the following publications:

King III Report on Governance for South Africa (iPaper format).
King III Code of Governance for South Africa (iPaper format).
King III Practice Notes: Guidance on business rescue (172k).

Educational and networking

Jan is an active participant in turnaround industry conferences, publishing turnaround articles and guest lecturing in turnaround management at business schools.

Industry associations

In 2004 he initiated what was eventually named the Task Group for Organising the Turnaround and Business Rescue Industries, which included 100 representatives from various stakeholder groups in industry in its Work Group and Advisory Group.

The Task Group spawned:

ABASA - Association of Business Administrators of South Africa - a past proposed business rescue regulatory body in terms of new business rescue legislation, where he served on the Interim Executive as Treasurer. ABASA has since merged in to the Turnaround Governance Board of South Africa, the proposed regulator of business rescue practitioners, and the proposed certification governance body for turnaround professionals.

Turnaround Management Association - Southern Africa (TMA-SA), the establishment of which Jan initiated and concluded as a founder member after having been a member of the Chicago Chapter of the TMA before.
- He was voted onto the initial board of TMA-SA as director in 2005.
- 2005: Director and Chief Executive Officer.
- 2006: Director and Chief Operating Officer.
- 2007 - 08: Director and Chief Operating Officer; Informatics Director.
- 2009: Director and Chief Operating Officer.
- 2009: CEO of the Turnaround Governance Board of South Africa.
  - 2009: Chair of its Standards Subcommittee.
  - 2009: Member of its Academic Subcommittee.
- He also serves on the International Committee of TMA.

View the Jan van der Walt TMA-SA member profile.

Business rescue legislation and regulations

As the representative of TMA-SA, Jan has been actively involved in submissions to government and government workshops on new business rescue legislation as contained in Chapter 6 of the Companies Act No. 71 of 2008, and its associated business rescue regulations.

For his assessment of how the new legislation will affect turnaround and the rescue of financially distressed companies, please go to business rescue.