The man taking over MultiChoice South Africa

Byron du Plessis officially took over as CEO of MultiChoice South Africa on 1 December 2024 after Marc Jury announced his resignation two weeks earlier.

Jury is staying on at the company until 31 March 2025 for a four-month handover period to Du Plessis.

Du Plessis has spent most of his career at MultiChoice, beginning at the company as a financial analyst in March 2013.

Educated in KwaZulu-Natal, Du Plessis attended Glenwood High School in Durban, matriculating in 2002.

He obtained his B.Com Accounting from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in 2006, and after completing his articles, worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers as an audit manager for two years.

At PwC, he focused on listed media and telecommunication clients.

Soon, he moved to MultiChoice — which was then part of Naspers — and rapidly climbed the corporate ladder.

After two years as an analyst, he was promoted to senior financial manager. He reported to the CFO and was responsible for all the financial aspects of MultiChoice’s technology and content platforms with a team of 20 staff.

Just over a year later, he was promoted to Head of Finance for MultiChoice SA. Within four months he was promoted again to Finance Director, reporting to the Group CFO for MultiChoice Africa.

In October 2017, he moved to Naspers, where he served as segment controller for the video entertainment business.

There, he led the listing of MultiChoice Group as a separate entity on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE).

Naspers first announced in September 2018 that it would unbundle its video entertainment business and list it separately on the JSE.

According to Naspers, unbundling MultiChoice aimed to unlock value for Naspers shareholders and simultaneously create an empowered, top 40 JSE-listed African entertainment company.

“The project was all-encompassing and given the tight six-month timeframe to implement, a lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into the process,” Du Plessis said in a 2020 presentation.

“The span of the project included the creation of the Group and the associated governance structures and obtaining approval of all statutory requirements,” explained Du Plessis.

This included MultiChoice’s pre-listing statement, which was published in January, and approvals from the JSE and various other regulatory governing bodies.

Du Plessis said they also developed their shareholder communication strategies and held their first global roadshow and investor day.

Additionally, he oversaw the financial and operational separation from Naspers — which MultiChoice had been part of for the last 30 years.

“This was a highlight of my career and an incredible developmental experience.”

After the unbundling, Du Plessis joined the MultiChoice Group as Corporate CFO.

Just over four years later, in June 2023, he was promoted to CFO for MultiChoice Corporate and SA Group.

In less than a year after that, he was appointed Group Deputy CFO.

MultiChoice Group CEO Calvo Mawela said that Du Plessis has been pivotal in driving strategic initiatives and partnerships, including the KingMakers, Comcast, and Sanlam deals.

He is also instrumental in the ongoing Canal+ acquisition.

According to Mawela, Du Plessis will continue to support MultiChoice Group CFO Tim Jacobs on key strategic projects at a group level. However, his primary focus will be on the SA business.