Advising legacies - how the ASI Group is building the future of businesses

Seventeen years in the ASI Group offers solutions in financial services, property management and connectivity. Their offering is multifaceted, but their mission is solidly clear to find answers that will make businesses thrive, not just for today but for generations to come.

- By Lynne Archer

Anthony Govender, the founder and CEO of ASI Financial Services, proudly points to a compilation of photos in his office. The son of a truck driver and a domestic worker is pictured as a small child on the arms of his grandmother, in front of the shack he grew up in.

"I feel incredibly privileged, humbled and grateful that I'm in a position to serve other people," he says. "I've gotten into rooms, I've met presidents of countries, and here's a kid who was raised in a zinc shack, who went to public school, who is nobody important."

Govender began his career as a call centre agent and rose through the ranks of financial service companies like Discovery and Liberty. In 2008, he made a bold decision to start his own company, inspired in part by the late MEC of education Ignatius Jacobs, who told him that young up-and-comers often focus on bringing international companies into the country, when there is so much potential to do something local. “That sort of triggered the thoughts and feelings that perhaps we can create something for South Africa,” Govender says.

Nonetheless, building a brand in financial services was not easy. “The first three years were incredibly difficult. It took us nearly 31 months to break even. The team made it through threats of the business failing and Govender having to put almost all his personal savings into the company. He jokingly talks about putting in a lot of “sweat capital” into the business.