Bob van Dijk

Bob van Dijk
Born	Template:Birth year and age
Birthplace	Near Eindhoven, Netherlands
Nationality	Dutch
Occupation	Businessman, corporate executive
Title	Group CEO, Naspers and Prosus (April 2014 – September 2023)
Known for	Former CEO of Naspers and Prosus
Education	INSEAD (MBA) Erasmus University Rotterdam (MSc in Econometrics)

Bob van Dijk (born 1972) is a Dutch businessman who served as the group chief executive officer of Naspers, the South African multinational internet and media conglomerate, and its international subsidiary Prosus, from April 2014 until his resignation in September 2023. During his nearly decade-long tenure atop one of Africa's largest companies by market capitalisation—and the single-biggest shareholder in China's Tencent—van Dijk oversaw the creation of Prosus as a separately listed European investment vehicle, navigated a complex portfolio of global internet businesses, and managed the persistent challenge of narrowing the discount between Naspers' market value and the worth of its underlying Tencent stake. Before joining Naspers, van Dijk built a career in management consulting and e-commerce, working at McKinsey & Company and eBay. He holds an MSc in econometrics from Erasmus University Rotterdam and an MBA from INSEAD.

Early Life

Bob van Dijk was born in 1972 and grew up near Eindhoven, in the southern part of the Netherlands. Eindhoven, historically associated with the electronics conglomerate Philips, is one of the Netherlands' principal technology and industrial centres. Details regarding van Dijk's family background and childhood have not been extensively documented in public sources.

Education

Van Dijk pursued his undergraduate and graduate studies in the Netherlands before obtaining an advanced degree in business abroad. He earned a Master of Science (MSc) in econometrics from Erasmus University Rotterdam, one of the leading research universities in the Netherlands with a strong reputation in economics and quantitative disciplines. He subsequently obtained a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from INSEAD, the international graduate business school with campuses in Fontainebleau, France, and Singapore. His educational background combined quantitative analytical training with broad-based business management education, a combination that would inform his later career in management consulting and technology-focused corporate leadership.

Career

Early Career at McKinsey & Company

Van Dijk began his professional career as an associate at McKinsey & Company, the global management consulting firm. McKinsey is one of the most prominent strategy consulting firms in the world, and an associate position there typically involves advising large corporations on strategic, operational, and organizational matters. The experience at McKinsey provided van Dijk with foundational exposure to corporate strategy across multiple industries and geographies. The precise duration of his time at the firm and the specific practice areas in which he worked have not been detailed in publicly available sources.

eBay

Following his time at McKinsey, van Dijk moved into the technology and e-commerce sector by joining eBay, the American multinational e-commerce company. His role at eBay marked his entry into the internet and technology industry, a sector that would define the remainder of his career. The specifics of his tenure at eBay—including his title, the markets he oversaw, and the duration of his employment—are not comprehensively documented in available public sources, though the experience gave him operational familiarity with the global online marketplace business model.

Naspers: Allegro Division

Van Dijk's career took a significant turn when he joined Naspers, the South African internet and media group that traces its origins to the founding of the Afrikaans-language newspaper Die Burger in 1915 but had by the 2000s transformed itself into one of the world's largest technology investors. At Naspers, van Dijk initially served as the CEO of the Allegro division. Allegro is a major online marketplace based in Poland that became one of the most prominent e-commerce platforms in Central and Eastern Europe. Under van Dijk's leadership of the division, he gained direct experience managing a large-scale internet business within the broader Naspers portfolio. His success in running the Allegro operations positioned him as a candidate for the group's top leadership role.

Group CEO of Naspers (2014–2023)

In late 2013, Naspers announced that Bob van Dijk had been appointed as the company's new group chief executive officer, effective 1 April 2014. He succeeded Koos Bekker, the long-serving executive who had overseen Naspers' transformation from a traditional media company into a global internet conglomerate, most notably through its early investment in Tencent Holdings, the Chinese technology giant. At the time of van Dijk's appointment, he was described as a "company newcomer" relative to other senior executives within the Naspers organisation.

Van Dijk's appointment came at a pivotal moment for Naspers. The company's approximately 31% stake in Tencent had grown to represent the overwhelming majority of Naspers' total market capitalisation, creating a structural challenge in which the market consistently valued Naspers at a significant discount to the sum of its underlying assets. This "Naspers discount" became one of the central strategic issues that van Dijk would grapple with throughout his tenure.

Creation of Prosus

One of the most significant structural decisions during van Dijk's tenure was the creation of Prosus, a separately listed international consumer internet subsidiary. Prosus was listed on the Euronext Amsterdam exchange in September 2019, with Naspers retaining a controlling stake. The rationale behind the listing was to provide a more appropriate European-listed vehicle for Naspers' international internet assets, including the Tencent stake and investments in companies spanning online classifieds, food delivery, payments, and education technology. The creation of Prosus was intended in part to address the persistent discount at which Naspers traded relative to the value of its Tencent holding, by giving international investors a more accessible entry point and reducing the outsized impact of the Naspers stock on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), where it had at times represented over 20% of the index's total weighting.

Van Dijk served simultaneously as the CEO of both Naspers and Prosus, overseeing a complex dual-listed corporate structure. Under this arrangement, Prosus held the international internet assets, including the Tencent stake, while Naspers retained control through its majority ownership of Prosus along with its South African media assets.

Portfolio Management and Strategic Direction

During van Dijk's tenure, Naspers and Prosus managed a globally diversified portfolio of internet and technology companies. The portfolio extended across numerous sectors including online classifieds (through investments in platforms such as OLX Group), food delivery (through investments in companies such as Delivery Hero, iFood, and Swiggy), payments and fintech (through PayU), and education technology (through investments in platforms such as Udemy and others).

A recurring strategic challenge throughout van Dijk's leadership was the question of how to unlock value from the Tencent stake while managing the discount. The company undertook a share swap and buyback programme through which Prosus gradually sold down portions of its Tencent holding to fund share repurchases of its own stock, seeking to narrow the discount in a tax-efficient and market-neutral manner. This open-ended programme represented a novel approach to the problem, though the discount proved resistant to narrowing significantly over the long term.

The Financial Times described Naspers under van Dijk as "the single-biggest shareholder in China's Tencent," underscoring the degree to which the Tencent investment remained the dominant feature of the company's valuation and investor profile.

Departure in September 2023

On 18 September 2023, Naspers and Prosus announced that Bob van Dijk had stepped down as chief executive officer of both companies, effective immediately. The departure was widely characterised in the media as abrupt. TechCrunch reported that van Dijk "abruptly steps down," while Reuters described the transition as involving the company's mergers and acquisitions chief, Fabricio Bloisi, who would take the helm alongside existing executives.

Bloomberg News reported that following his departure, van Dijk would remain as a consultant to the board of the companies. The Financial Times contextualised the departure within the broader strategic questions facing Naspers, particularly regarding the Tencent stake and the persistent market discount.

The BusinessLive publication, affiliated with South Africa's Business Day newspaper, also confirmed the announcement of his departure.

Post-Departure Compensation

Following his departure, details emerged regarding the financial terms of van Dijk's exit. According to a 2025 report by MyBroadband, a South African technology news publication, van Dijk received approximately R165.8 million (South African rand) from Naspers after he stepped down on 18 September 2023. The publication calculated that this amounted to approximately R2.2 million per month during the period following his departure, reflecting the contractual arrangements associated with his consulting role and termination terms. The scale of the post-departure compensation attracted media attention in South Africa, where Naspers is one of the largest listed companies on the JSE.

Personal Life

Bob van Dijk is a Dutch national. Beyond what is documented regarding his professional career and educational background, details of his personal life—including family information—have not been extensively reported in publicly available sources. He was based in the Netherlands during his tenure leading Prosus, which is headquartered in Amsterdam, though the dual-listed structure required engagement with both the South African and European operations of the group.

Legacy

Bob van Dijk's tenure as CEO of Naspers and Prosus, spanning nearly a decade from April 2014 to September 2023, coincided with a period of significant structural change for both companies. The most notable organisational achievement during his leadership was the creation and listing of Prosus in 2019, which established a European-listed vehicle for Naspers' international internet assets and represented an attempt to address the persistent discount between Naspers' market capitalisation and the underlying value of its Tencent stake. The Prosus listing was one of the largest technology listings in European history at the time.

Under van Dijk, the Naspers and Prosus portfolio was expanded across multiple sectors of the global internet economy, including food delivery, online classifieds, payments, and education technology. The companies invested in and managed stakes in businesses operating in dozens of countries, making the group one of the largest technology investors outside the United States and China.

However, the central challenge of van Dijk's tenure—narrowing the discount at which Naspers and Prosus traded relative to the value of their Tencent holding—remained largely unresolved at the time of his departure. The share swap and buyback programme initiated during his leadership represented a novel approach to this problem, but the market discount persisted as a source of investor frustration. The abruptness of his departure in September 2023, as characterised by multiple media outlets, suggested a shift in board strategy and a desire for new leadership to tackle these enduring structural issues.

Van Dijk's compensation arrangements after his departure also drew attention, reflecting broader discussions in South Africa and internationally about executive remuneration at large listed companies.