{"id":878829,"date":"2026-10-08T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=878829"},"modified":"2026-10-08T07:58:06","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T05:58:06","slug":"business-talk-avbob-group-ceo-eugene-strauss-on-evolving-the-company-beyond-funeral-insurance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/878829\/business-talk-avbob-group-ceo-eugene-strauss-on-evolving-the-company-beyond-funeral-insurance\/","title":{"rendered":"Business Talk \u2013 AVBOB Group CEO Eugene Strauss on evolving the company beyond funeral insurance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In this Business Talk with Michael Avery interview, Eugene Strauss explains how AVBOB is evolving to meet new financial needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Strauss is the Chief Executive Officer of AVBOB Group and boasts more than 25 years of experience working in the financial sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He was appointed to his current post in August 2026, and prior to this, had served as the CEO of Absa Life Insurance at Absa Group for over seven years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Strauss also served as Chief Financial Officer of Barclays Africa Group for over five years and of Absa Life for over four years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Strauss is a member of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants and holds a Master&#8217;s-level qualification (PGD) in Strategy and Innovation from the University of Oxford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Additionally, he holds a Bachelor of Commerce in Accounting and a Bachelor of Commerce Honours in Accounting from the University of Pretoria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The interview<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In this Business Talk interview, Strauss outlines where he sees the biggest opportunities for AVBOB to grow, and how the company\u2019s mutual rather than shareholder-owned model shapes his strategic priorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Strauss shares how he sees the company evolving to meet new needs and the approach he will take to growing AVBOB without compromising its key values.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He also explains where AVBOB is in its digital service adoption journey, and notes the importance of cybersecurity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Strauss concludes the interview by outlining the skills that are needed for AVBOB to achieve its goals and the metrics by which he will judge the company\u2019s progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Watch the interview with Eugene Strauss below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Business Talk - Eugene Strauss on taking AVBOB beyond funeral insurance\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bOpuVwl399c?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eugene Strauss is the Chief Executive Officer of AVBOB Group and an over 25-year veteran of the finance industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":878830,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"failed","_sma_x_autopost_error":"Instagram publishing failed: Instagram returned HTTP 400: Media ID is not available","_sma_x_post_id":"2108120482838908958","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2230253787795020","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26744,15578,26745,11236],"class_list":["post-878829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-avbob","tag-business-talk","tag-eugene-strauss","tag-interview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=878829"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":878831,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878829\/revisions\/878831"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/878830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=878829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=878829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=878829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}