I just QUIT my job at Deloitte. Here are 8 reasons why you should JOIN them immediately. (2024)

Yes, you read that right, but hear me out.I just raised funding with one of my best friends, Francois Liebenberg, to build a FinTech/EdTech startup that can potentially disrupt the education funding model in South Africa.How did I go from a Northern Cape farm boy to FinTech startup founder?The answer is simple: Deloitte.

The Green Dot not only shaped me into a young business leader, it is also the place where I met my co-founder three years ago.If you are at the start of your career or it feels as if you have not yet found the company that can take your career to the next level, this article is for you.

In this 8 minute article, I’ll be sharing 8 reasons why I think Deloitte is one of the best companies to work for through my personal journey.

1.Incredible talent & culture

Never in my life have I felt so intimidated as my first week at Deloitte.Suddenly I was not one of the sharpest guys in the room, in fact, I’ve never felt so average in my life.I was surrounded by people with more degrees and qualifications than a varsity professor, better experience, better soft skills and to top it all off a sense of humour.As an Afrikaans guy coming from the Northern Cape where even the English classes were in Afrikaans, I buffered more than Zuma during a SONA speech, obviously missing every punchline of the jokes I tried to translate over a cup of coffee.Never have I seen a group of people from different academic backgrounds, first languages, races, gender, religions and cultures work so well together.What an eye opener for me personally of what we as South Africans can achieve if we all take hands.To surround yourself with smart people is probably the best investment anyone can make, Deloitte made this very easy for me as I just had to pitch up for work every day.As the saying goes, “If you’re the smartest guy in the room, you’re in the wrong room”.

2.Support structures

I joined Deloitte’s Financial Services Advisory as a BMI Masters degree student in July 2012 and the support from day one was just incredible.As a small town farm boy, getting the opportunity to start my career at a global giant like Deloitte was a dream come true and something that would probably not have been possible without the great structures within the BMI program at North West University and Professor Riaan De Jongh that saw me as a good fit for Deloitte at the time.The internal support structures are truly phenominal and from day one Pravin Burra (Partner at Deloitte at the time) took me under his wing and what a journey it has been ever since.You also get a Mentor within Deloitte and I owe a big part of my success today to Chris-Jan Venter who guided me from a very young age to become a leader in the business world.

3.Exposure

In my 5 years at Deloitte I’ve had the incredible opportunity to work on projects at all the South African Tier 1 banks, Tier 1 insurers, multiple Tier 2 banks and a string of credit providers.I’ve done work across the whole financial ecosystem and met incredible people along the way.This gave me the opportunity to approach things from different angles, to observe and process what some companies are extremely good and bad at, and form a view of market best practice from a very young age.This enabled me to add real value as a consultant and make a difference at our clients.Not many companies can give you the broad exposure Deloitte gives you in a very short space of time.

4.Networking

Due to the fact that you work on cutting edge projects with big budgets at a company like Deloitte, you get exposure to very senior leadership within the banking world from a very young age.I’ve sat in hundreds of meetings with C-level execs over my five years and what you learn from observing people that have been around the block has catapulted my personal development to levels I never imagined.Deloitte provides you with a great platform to build your network by simply doing your day job and with this come more opportunities.There was a time in my career where I got weekly calls from recruiters, offering me the opportunity to interview for jobs way out of my league at that stage and the reason for this was twofold.Companies know that Deloitte recruits only the cream of the crop, so your chances of poaching a poor performer is minimal.The second reason is the fact that we physically work at our clients and word spreads quickly through a bank and spills over to other banks as the resource pool is small and musical chairs is no longer just a primary school game.Lucky for me, my personal growth at Deloitte was so intense that no one ever convinced me to jump ship, but it was still GREAT to know I had options.

5.Great brand

Deloitte really is a strong brand on your CV and recognized world wide.There are very few people that I’ve met over the years that do not immediately recognize Deloitte when they ask me what I do for a living and what company I work for.The value in this cannot be measured in rands and cents, but it automatically comes with a certain degree of respect.I can also personally testify that senior leadership goes the extra mile to protect the brand and most importantly the people.We are all human and make mistakes along the way, but I have never seen management turn against an employee at Deloitte, creating a very safe environment to keep pushing boundaries and change the world.

6.Personal growth

No one could prepare me for the steep learning curve that comes from a first job at Deloitte, but I very soon realized that the deep-end is EXACTLY where you want to be early on in your career.I got great advice at a young age to always chase experience instead of money until you are 30, and money will chase you for the rest of your life.I’m not in a position to comment on the latter yet, but at 28 I can truly say that I’ve always chased experience and the doors it has opened for me is proof that it is probably the best career advice I ever got.I can personally say that I walked out of Deloitte a 500% better version of myself than when I walked into the Deloitte building for the first time.Every year my CV got a page longer, my soft skills got better, my leadership capabilities grew, my horizons widened and my approach to life changed.Why?Because I was always surrounded with like minded, intelligent people, an opportunity very few get on a daily basis.

7.Performance driven

Deloitte truly is a company that rewards commitment and hard work.As a driven, motivated, hard working individual, I cannot imagine a better company to work for.In my 5 years at Deloitte I was extremely blessed with 5 promotions.I always tried to go the extra mile, an act that never went unnoticed and without recognition in a great company like Deloitte.I was fortunate enough to get a decent bonus every year, even in the tough economic and political times that we faced over the last 5 years.This is evidence of a good business model, coupled with good management. If you are a dynamic, driven individual, there is no better place to shape your career than Deloitte.

8.Endless opportunities

I don’t even know where to begin when it comes to opportunities.Deloitte is the one place where you can create opportunities and shape your own career as you want.In my 5 year stint at Deloitte I got the opportunity to publish an academic paper, to be a speaker at the the ERM conference of the Actuarial Society of South Africa and the Deloitte EMEA Quant Conference in Oslo, Norway. I boarded over a 100 flights (I’ve never even been to an airport before I joined Deloitte), travelled to four different countries around the world for work, got the opportunity to become a part time lecturer at the University of Stellenbosch and Deloitte even gave me the green light to appear on Shark Tank SA season one.The biggest opportunity for me however came in 2016 when Deloitte FSA afforded me the opportunity to set up a Deloitte FSA division in Cape Town.I was only 26 at the time, but when opportunities like these come along there is no place for fear and I grabbed it with both hands.The next 18 months was the craziest time of my life and I will forever be grateful for the FSA Partners that afforded me the opportunity, especially Jonathan Sykes for all the support and mentorship that forced me to grow into the leader I am today.It took hard work, long hours and extreme commitment to make it all work, but the personal growth I experienced over this time made it truly memorable.

Deloitte really made an impact that matters on my life and I will forever be grateful and loyal to the people and brand that shaped my future.In a very short 5 years my perspective on life changed completely, my dreams got a 1000 times bigger, my capacity to consume information and make things happen increased significantly and for the first time in my life I really believe that anything is possible with the right mindset.Deloitte over delivered on every single expectation I had of my first employer and I am very sad to leave such a great team, but also incredibly excited for the next phase of my life.The next few years are going to be a scary but exciting journey and I am looking forward to put all the skills I learned over the last few years to good work in the roller coaster world of an entrepreneur.

Watch this space!!!