Laurie Dippenaar studied at the University of Pretoria where he obtained a M.Com in Accounting. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1973.
In 1977, together with two partners, he founded Rand Consolidated Investment (Pty) (RCI), a company specialising in project finance for public utility companies and municipalities. Over the next 40 years, Laurie and his co-founders built FirstRand into the largest financial services Group, by market capitalisation, on the African continent. During his 40-year career in the financial services industry Laurie served as Chairman of various companies in the Group, including Momentum Life, OUTsurance, Discovery, FNB, Rand Merchant Bank and FirstRand.
Laurie also served on the Governing bodies of various educational institutions, including more than two decades as a Member of the Council of the University of Pretoria. He served as President of Business Leadership of South Africa for two years and chaired the Centre for Development and Enterprise, one of South Africa’s best-known think tanks, for fifteen years.
Laurie co-sponsors the Laurie Dippenaar/FirstRand Postgraduate Scholarship, which annually awards bursaries to South African students for postgraduate study abroad in any discipline at an international university of their choice.
He was voted Sunday Times Business Man of the Year in 1998. In 2014 he received the Sunday Times Lifetime Achiever Award, and in 2023 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Pretoria.
