Excellence at every level

The finance function of a listed property company is measured by audits and compliance, but Financial Director at Vukile Property Fund Lizelle Pottas proves that excellence also rests on systems, culture and discipline.

A chartered accountant (South Africa) with a BCom Accounting degree (cum laude) and BCom Accounting Honours, Lizelle Pottas drives financial excellence at Vukile through her role in group reporting, compliance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) compliance and oversight of internal and external audits. Her journey to the top of a listed South African real estate investment trust (SA REIT) runs through impactful roles at PwC and Absa’s Technical Advisory Group, where she honed her financial acumen and gained global perspectives during her time in Washington Metro in the USA, specialising in financial services, particularly insurance and investment management. She served as Group Head of Finance at Vukile before stepping into the Financial Director role. At every step, her commitment to excellence has been evident, contributing significantly to Vukile’s success.

That success is considerable. Specialist retail REIT Vukile leads the retail property sector with its consumer-focused approach, implemented across a portfolio of retail assets valued at R63.7 billion in assets. Its commitment to customers shines through in its convenient, community-focused, needs-based retail centres.

Vukile’s R19.5 billion South African portfolio of township, rural, urban and commuter malls serve some of the country’s most compelling consumer markets. However, close to 70% of its assets are in Europe. Through its 99.7%-owned subsidiary Castellana Properties, Vukile is invested in a €2.2 billion portfolio across Spain and Portugal. It has acquired a 35% stake in Pradera, the pan-European retail fund and asset manager with €5 billion of assets under management and, leveraging Pradera’s track record in Italy, Vukile entered the Italian market with an inaugural €115 million portfolio of three shopping centres, establishing its new Italian holding company Esperia Properties as a platform for further expansion. Behind that growing international footprint sits a finance function that must hold it all together – and that is where Lizelle’s leadership comes into its own.

Systems that travel

Lizelle’s banking background gave her a foundation in structured processes, controls and systems thinking, and she applied it from the moment she took over Vukile’s finance function in January 2020. Within less than three months of her taking on the role, the COVID crisis put Vukile’s financial team and systems to the test. But the test played straight into Lizelle’s strengths and accelerated a beneficial shift from legacy manual workflows to electronic, more efficient financial processes that made remote management possible.

That discipline continues to pay dividends as Vukile grows and builds subsidiary businesses in new territories, from Castellana Properties in Spain to Esperia Properties in Italy. Vukile’s finance team helps subsidiaries adopt systems, creates standard reporting templates, and harmonises accounting policies and governance to produce IFRS, JSE and SA REIT-aligned reporting across borders. It is detailed, painstaking work that often means bridging entirely different reporting cultures. For SA REITs, funds from operations (FFO) is a key measure, but for Vukile’s European subsidiaries, the concept was unfamiliar. Translating it, embedding it and making it routine is exactly the kind of quiet, structural achievement that defines Lizelle’s approach: build the system so it works and lasts.

The power of mentorship

Ask Lizelle about the influences that shaped her leadership and she points first to Ina Lopion, a former MD at Vukile, whom she describes as a formative mentor. Ina modelled calm confidence, ran formal mentoring and taught a “fair but firm” approach to giving feedback and managing teams. It is this approach Lizelle adopted and now embeds in her own team culture. Coming from a banking background and new to the sector, Lizelle also benefited from Ina’s coaching on the property industry itself. “From Ina’s example I saw first-hand that confidence is not about speaking the loudest, it is about bringing substance to the conversation,” she says. “When you lead with value, people listen.”

It is a philosophy she has carried into her own leadership, and one she believes must extend beyond individuals to the team as a whole. For Lizelle, team culture must align with company culture. Aligned cultures, clear shared goals, and regular and frequent communication check-ins create an environment where team members volunteer help, reduce bottlenecks and uncover process efficiencies – and where colleagues support one another under tight finance deadlines. In a function where the pressure of reporting seasons is relentless, that culture is a control in its own right.

Lessons from the fairway

Lizelle is candid about the early lessons and experiences that shaped her path. From a young age, she played competitive golf, earning provincial and national colours not through natural talent alone but through discipline, practice and persistence. “Golf taught me that results follow consistency and also taught humility. Even your best shot can be undone by the next, a lesson mirrored in both business and life.”

That blend of discipline and humility runs through her career choices too. She describes pivotal guidance from a former manager at Absa, who recommended focusing on three life areas to avoid overextension and support success. Initially, she applied that advice by prioritising her career, her studies and her passion for golf. Today, the mix has shifted. She recently completed a sponsor development programme covering the Companies Act, the King Code and JSE listing requirements, and with career and family – she is raising two young boys – rounding out her three focus areas, time on the golf course has been the sacrifice. It is a trade-off she speaks about openly. Excellence, she suggests, is not about doing everything. It is about choosing deliberately.

The network effect

For those starting their careers today, Lizelle shares a valuable nugget of advice she was given early in her own. After finishing her articles at PwC, she stayed on as a manager in an IFRS advisory division, where a partner took her under his wing. His counsel to her was that, at the start of a professional career, focus on building very strong relationships and a professional network.

“I found that very valuable,” she says. “Being part of a global organisation like PwC gave me the opportunity to build those networks, and then at Absa, also a very large organisation, to build relationships with people outside of my team. At Vukile, I’ve been able to leverage the relationships I built earlier in my career. Our paths have now crossed again in the REIT industry. I can connect with professionals at other REITs, or with some of our stakeholders at the banks, and because we formed that previous connection, it just opens up so many doors.” Even now, she treats every industry conference as a double opportunity. “The content speakers present is obviously useful, but it is also a fantastic opportunity to network with other people in your industry and outside of your organisation.”

It is advice that captures Lizelle’s business style: invest early, invest consistently and let compounding do its work. Whether in systems, in culture, in relationships or on the fairway, she has built her career on the same principle – excellence at every level is earned one disciplined choice at a time. www.vukile.co.za