Naspers Ltd, the e-commerce and media company based in South Africa, announced that Chief Executive Officer Koos Bekker will be leaving his post in April after leading the firm through 17 years of robust growth that turned the small publisher to a behemoth in the emerging markets, Reuters reported.
In a statement, the company said Bob van Dijk will be replacing Bekker as CEO. Dijk, who graduated cum laude in MSc Econometrics from Erasmus University Rotterdam and who also holds an MBA from Insead in France, is the most senior e-commerce chief of Naspers. Meanwhile, Bekker will dedicate one year for travel before heading the Naspers board of directors as Chairman to succeed current Chair Ton Vosloo when he comes back on April 2015.
The statement added that Bekker will travel extensively and research for new growth drivers for the firm to prepare for the time when e-commerce matures. He will, however, continue to stay with the board of China-based Tencent.
Vosloo is confident in Dijk. He said in the statement, "In view of our strong development focus on ecommerce, the board believes that Bob has the skills to lead us into the next phase of our growth."
With Bekker at the helm, Naspers transformed from merely being an Afrikaans-language publisher to a $48 billion multinational firm. Bekker did this by making investments in Internet companies as well as in rapidly-growing markets. One of Bekker's successful bets was in Tencent Holdings which is now the biggest Internet company in China. Naspers owns about one third of the Chinese firm, the report said.
In the statement, Bekker said, "It's been fun. I couldn't have wished for a more interesting life. Now I hope to travel to places like Seoul and San Francisco where the future is being manufactured, and see if there are new technologies we should be trying out. Plus experience a few oddball spots. When Ton steps down, I'll rejoin the board, hopefully with fresh ideas."
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