Alpha Business and Market Development Executive Lester Botha began his insurance career in George in 1986. Four decades later, he is using what he learned to help shape the industry’s next generation.

When Lester Botha entered insurance in 1986, he had been preparing for an entirely different career. He planned to become a teacher.

Forty years later, teaching remains one of the strongest threads running through his life. Today, as Business and Market Development Executive at Alpha, he draws on four decades of insurance experience to strengthen relationships across the market and support the development of people entering the industry.

AN UNEXPECTED BEGINNING

Botha grew up on a farm in George, where discipline, honesty and hard work formed part of everyday life.

He had been studying to teach physical education. That path changed while he was completing his military service, when his father called to tell him about an opportunity at Price Forbes Federale Volkskas.

Botha attended the interview in his army uniform.

“My dad phoned me afterwards and asked what they had asked me,” he recalls. “I said, ‘Nothing. We just had a chat for about an hour.’”

Several weeks later, he accepted the position and began work in the company’s George office on 1 July 1986.

“I literally knew nothing about insurance,” he says.

His earliest responsibilities included writing out third-party insurance discs by hand.

TRUSTED WITH RESPONSIBILITY

Botha’s first manager, Kobus le Roux, became his first mentor.

Le Roux invested heavily in his training, but understood that knowledge could only take him so far. After three months, he sent Botha into his first client meeting alone.

The client, a lawyer and an old friend of Le Roux’s, grilled him throughout a meeting that had been arranged to test him.

“I thought I had done a lot of preparation and good work, but it was not even close to enough,” Botha recalls.

Three years later, he was sent to London for further training and spent a month gaining experience inside a Lloyd’s syndicate box.

“They gave me responsibility, and it was my decision,” Botha says. “I had to rely on my own knowledge. That forced me to study, train, read and ask questions.”

He kept a blue file beside his bed to capture ideas that came to him during the night. Every Friday, he shared them with his manager. If an idea was approved, it became his project to pursue. That initiative also shaped the way he engaged with clients and service providers.

Those regular conversations gave him room to test his thinking while building the relationship and trust that helped him grow. It is a practice he encourages younger professionals to adopt; make time with your manager, engage openly and arrive willing to learn. If you bring forward an idea, be prepared to take responsibility for what follows.

BUILDING PEOPLE, NOT REPLICAS

After 10 years in George in various junior and middle management positions, Botha’s career took him to Cape Town and increasingly senior roles. Along the way, he lectured final-year BCom students at Stellenbosch University and identified graduates with the potential to build careers in insurance.

Many of the people who passed through his teams went on to occupy senior positions across the African insurance market. His goal, however, was never to create younger versions of himself.

“I allowed them to build their own personalities,” he says. “I would give them mentorship and training and point them in the right direction, but I gave them the opportunity to make decisions and buy into the bigger strategic picture.”

He also believes leadership should not be confused with management.

“You can be a leader at any level, whilst not all managers are leaders,” he says.

One of his preferred ways to recognise potential is to put someone in charge of a project and give them room to lead.

“Then you see how they grow and how they bloom.”

FORTY YEARS AND STILL LEARNING

Botha has watched advances in data, analytics and process efficiency transform the way insurance business is conducted. But he believes technology cannot replace the value of meeting people face to face, where knowledge, confidence and the way people represent themselves and their companies help establish trust.

Earlier in his career, relationship-building often continued around the dinner table. Botha and his wife hosted so many dinners for colleagues and industry contacts that they bought larger dinner sets. They recently joked that it may finally be time to pass them on to their children, who are following in their footsteps.

Those interactions teach young professionals how to listen, read a room, ask better questions and understand the person behind the business. They also create the trust on which lasting business relationships and friendships are built.

For Botha, a good mentee is not someone who simply accepts advice.

“Someone must be able to listen, analyse and internalise what has been put across,” he says.

Mentorship requires curiosity and a willingness to do something with the knowledge and opportunities you receive. It also requires the humility to recognise that experience does not give one person all the answers.

“You never stop learning,” he says. “You must not think that you only learn from experienced people. You learn from everybody.”

BRINGING THE BROKER’S PERSPECTIVE TO ALPHA

After 36 years on the broking side of the industry, Botha joined Alpha in January 2023, bringing with him relationships built across local, national and international markets.

“I joined Alpha because I knew my experience could add value. Having spent most of my career as a broker, I understood what brokers need from an insurer and where stronger relationships could make a difference.  This aligned with Alpha’s approach as a specialist insurer that places broker relationships, technical expertise and personal service at the centre of its business.”

The move gave him an opportunity to apply his experience from the insurer’s side of the table, helping Alpha view relationships through a broker’s eyes and strengthen the way it engages with brokers and clients, while continuing to develop others.

Away from work, family remains central to his life. He and his wife will celebrate 40 years of marriage in April 2027.

“She is my mirror, my rock, my greatest supporter and friend,” he says. They have three children and are also grandparents.

He enjoys spending time in nature, which he says teaches patience, resilience, balance and humility. His reading includes strategic business and global economic reports and journals, but a quiet fire and a good glass of wine offer time to unwind. His faith underpins his gratitude for both his working and personal life.

Forty years after his first day in George, the young man who intended to become a teacher is still teaching.

Botha’s contribution can be measured not only by what he has achieved, but by what he has helped make possible for the generation coming after him.