“Overcoming Difficulties with Confidence”

Marina Short the CEO of Consumer Profile Bureau began her journey at CPB 10 years ago - as the Marketing Executive. At that time CPB was still a niche reseller Credit Bureau.

Today, CPB is proud to be one of the five major Credit Bureaus in South Africa. Marina excels in understanding clients' problem statements and challenges through extensive involvement with their industry and their operations.

South Africa has specific and unique challenges that stem from our difficult and uneven past; a past in which disparate communities with different financial affluence evolved into communities who are today striving for even opportunities and financial inclusion. Marina believes that “…by understanding this, I can work with the research and development team (team led by Alain Craven) and together we can design unique, bespoke, and customizable products that address the challenges our clients have. Though our hands on approach, we can provide insight and oversight solutions that identify key risks and rewarding opportunities. I believe in our products and that they can make a difference. Our unique mindset and drive for success has led to our historically small bureau now challenging the market that was previously dominated by strong players originating from the UK and US, and we offer truly unique, truly South African solutions.”

One of Marina's biggest challenges (and subsequently her biggest success!) was in finding unique offerings in an established, mainly male dominant market. She strongly believes that women have a unique blend of intuitive skills and that they can seize challenges and produce solutions easier and more effectively than men. Hailing from a mining community where her mother had to work multiple jobs to keep food on the table, Marina was adamant about ensuring that she would work hard and succeed. “I embrace my femininity and uniqueness and never give up. I will find a way – no matter how difficult the road may seem initially. I am also a mom to three strong and successful boys—who are sensitive in their support to their partners and strong in leading their households—and I have taught them to always work hard to achieve your dreams and to enjoy life.”

Marina has been compared to Angela Merkle by her colleagues, but she has had various role models carve the leader in her. “First was my mother who taught me to work hard and never stop believing in your dreams. My role models also included Wayne Abegglen – he knew how to motivate and mentor the people around him to give of their best. He taught me to focus on the processes and solutions - rather than the people and the problems. I have huge respect for Madiba – he overcame so many challenges and managed to unite all South Africa – and to encourage our belief in a bigger, better future – together as the rainbow nation.” Armed with such a unique ideology, she has taken the company to new heights.

Consumer Profile Bureau (CPB) was established in 1981 as Snyman en Vennote Krediet Profile Bureau - a bureau that offered solutions to the debt collections market. “It was mainly a reseller credit bureau when I joined in 2011 and I had to not only position the Bureau in industries outside the Debt Collection Industry, but also penetrate the already saturated market by bringing new and ground-breaking solutions to the market,” adds Marina. “CPB was nominated as a finalist in the International Banking Technology awards in 2017 and we were invited to London for the prize giving. We were super proud of the recognition and the success at that event – and we remain as proud of our team to this day.”

CPB focuses on understanding the problems in multiple industries and building, designing and creating customizable solutions that are readily adaptable for our client’s specific needs. CPB boasts quick turnaround time for taking products to market, leveraging on the philosophy of “build once, deploy often” and ensuring our products are rapidly and easily customizable in consultation with our clients. We build empowering solutions that allow clients to express their own business logic and rules in our templates.

We empower our clients with insights in a compliant environment that assists them in identifying risks and opportunities and, in the process, have maximum customer experience with minimum operational expenses and customer friction.

We will continue to disrupt the market by staying close to our clients, partners, and stakeholders and bringing them bespoke solutions that maximizes customer experience, optimizes compliance, and minimizes operational expenditure. IEWL