Innes Buurman

He started his first company when he was only six years old. While his mates were quite content to play hide and seek in the streets of Bloemfontein, this young entrepreneur, was busy encouraging them to invest their pocket money with him so that together their investments would yield bigger returns. While his start-up venture only lasted for about three hours (after his parents discovered the collected R30 in his lunch box) – it was clear that the young Innes Buurman was destined for great things. Innes is one of the latest recruits to join the elite RMB Class Of Programme.

Innes is currently doing his rotation in the Resource Sector Solutions team at RMB where he is leveraging his expertise as a geologist while building his investment banking skillset. Innes’s journey to become a geologist wasn’t as clear cut. On the contrary, all he wanted to do was to play the guitar, be in a band and surf. He was so adamant to do this that he joined a punk-rock band in school, quit mathematics in his matric year and followed his dream to study music.

He continued this journey for about three years, until one afternoon in the Cape Winelands, in the middle of one of the music school’s annual tours that he realised that he was ready for a change. After numerous conversations with various friends, mentors and family, Innes duly enrolled for a BSc. Geology degree at the University of the Free State and continued to complete his MSc. Economic Geology at Wits, cum laude.

When music and math meet

While his move from the arts to geology may seem like a radical departure, Innes believes that there is a strong correlation between mathematics, music and art – “as the engineers used to joke with us, geologists are the artists of the science field”. His musical background changed his perceptions and opened up his mind to look at life through different lenses – not to mention the boost in confidence having to perform on stage to large audiences. He has no regrets for pursuing a musical career first and feels that a gap year (or three) should be encouraged more in schools, as the broader perspective in these early years could really be used as a launching pad for entrepreneurship and further studies.

Exploring new horizons

While Innes’s career as a geologist took him to many exciting destinations throughout Africa such as Rwanda, the DRC, Zimbabwe and Zambia, he still wanted to learn more and explore new horizons. This insatiable need to explore, learn and try new things continued throughout his career. He would wake up in the middle of night thinking of innovative ways to change the world for the better.

One such a dream was realised when he started his own company to use data insights in combination with geospatial mapping techniques to deliver unique solutions to township economies. These insights eventually led to questions around the value of data and how to monetise it for individuals and local spaza shops. This in turn led to research on valuation methodologies, deal structuring, negotiations, etc. In this pursuit Innes strongly started to consider an MBA, or to find a way to explore this practically at an investment bank. Enters the RMB Class Of Programme.

The opportunity of a lifetime

The RMB Class Of Programme was his eureka moment. The opportunity to explore various parts of the bank, while being constantly challenged, learning new things, working on big landmark deals, forming part of a winning team and to have an open door to the bank’s top executives became the opportunity of a lifetime. The chance to use his diverse set of skills as an entrepreneur, artist and scientist finally sealed the deal.

It is arguably Innes’s unconventional mind, passion and drive to question the norm that makes him the perfect RMB Class Of candidate.

Growing township economies

Innes is also keen to further explore opportunities where data analytics can be used to find innovative solutions to the continent’s challenges. At the moment his thinking is along the lines of finding ways to use unstructured and/or structured data to use as drivers in valuation or credit models to access township/informal economies.

Innes was never going to follow the masses – not because he is rebellious, but because he is curious. His mantra, “Always be willing to take a chance, take a shot – you may miss, but you could also discover a passion for music, geology and (lucky for RMB), the RMB Class Of Programme.”