Interviews

Adrian Gore is the founder and Group Chief Executive of Discovery Limited, a leading insurance and financial services company with headquarters in Johannesburg, South Africa. Mr. Gore begins this interview by describing how his family raised him to appreciate the lasting value of education. He explains that growing up in such a “knowledge-centric” environment inspired his desire to make an impact in society. The road towards achieving this impact began with Mr. Gore’s pursuit of an Actuarial Science degree from the University of Witwatersrand. There, he developed finance management skills and an appreciation for institutional scale which complemented his entrepreneurial mindset. Looking back at his time at the university, he reflects on the deep post-apartheid transformations that opened up professions such as Actuarial Science to all South Africans. He emphasizes the need to continue this process of transformation and celebrates his company’s role in achieving further progress towards equity in career opportunities.

After receiving his Bachelor of Applied Science degree in 1986, Mr. Gore joined Liberty Life, an insurance and investment firm founded by South African entrepreneur Donald Gordon. He describes how working in product development at an institutional business provided him with the opportunity to create real change – “it wasn’t about mathematics or dollars and cents. It was about impact.” The experience at Liberty Life led Mr. Gore to found his own company, Discovery Limited, at the age of 27. Building the company in the early 1990’s brought with it much uncertainty due to the instability caused by the process of ending apartheid in South Africa. Despite the uncertainty, Discovery persevered to become a healthcare insurer covering half of the South African market.

Mr. Gore proceeds to outline the qualities that have set Discovery apart – qualities encapsulated by its global Vitality Health wellness program. By collecting data and employing behavioral economics, the company incentivizes its customers to “[engage] in a healthy lifestyle, and that brings the cost of care down.” This data allows for a preventative rather than a reactive approach to healthcare. The robust and detailed nature of Discovery’s data collection practices even allowed it to track the Omicron variant of COVID-19 when it was first discovered in South Africa. Mr. Gore underscores how crucial it was to have strong private-public relationships at the time, as these allowed Discovery to help governments worldwide in their response to the ongoing pandemic.

More recently, Discovery entered the financial services industry with Vitality Money, a shared-value bank that rewards customers for managing their finances well by offering lower interest rates for borrowing and higher returns on savings. Mr. Gore explains the relationship between financial health and physical wellbeing, arguing that “there are a few things that affect financial mortality, so to speak […] Instead of a mortality curve, you’ve got a credit default curve – people borrow and can’t pay it back.” With over a million accounts, the financial services component of Discovery continues to expand, with the goal of incorporating all of the Vitality programs together to holistically reward customers for leading healthier and more sustainable lifestyles.

Mr. Gore asserts that the goal of improving customers’ quality of life continues to motivate him as the company grows in South Africa and other markets including the US and UK. Throughout the company’s growth, Gore says he has also led non-profit organizations such as Endeavor South Africa to foster entrepreneurship and highlight “business as a force for good.” With such ventures, Mr. Gore emphasizes the importance of entrepreneurship and of private-public relationships as vehicles for social change. He hopes that young entrepreneurs can view his company and the organizations that he’s worked with as examples, inspiring further change that can create jobs, wealth, and opportunity in South Africa.

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