How to grow a business by 315% over 20 years

Agra Ltd this week took leave of its enduring CEO, Peter Kazmaier who took the helm in 1995 when Agra Coop had a turnover of N$413 million and grew it into a multi-faceted agricultural conglomerate with an impressive N$1.3 billion turnover.

Flanking the Agra management are current Chairman of the Board, Ryno van der Merwe, on the left James Chapman, the chairman in 1995, the year in which Kazmaier was appointed. Between them, from the left are Titus Koen, General Manager: Livestock; Abelene Boer, Senior Manager: Marketing; Jurgen Cronjé, Senior Manager: Arms, Ammunition and Outdoors; Griffort Beukes, Senior Manager: HR; Flip de Bruyn, General Manager: Finance; Arnold Klein, General Manager: Retail and Wholesale and new CEO; Dagmar Honsbein, General Manager: ProVision; Henning Tiemann, Senior Manager: Properties and Peter Kazmaier. “His guidance and management of Agra can be considered as one of the largest contributions to agriculture by any individual after independence” said Chapman. “He started as an outsider with no experience of or exposure to the agricultural sector”, said current Chairman Van der Merwe.