STEFAN Strydom is a professional trustee, which means he makes decisions on behalf of other people. The associate director at PwC tells Margaret Harris how his passion for accountancy and drive to become a chartered accountant meant that he did not have the time to pursue a career as a professional cricketer

What is a trustee?

A trust functions as a separate entity from the person who created it. The trustees are the people appointed to administer and manage the trust, much like the directors of a company.

The trust deed is the formal agreement between the trustees and the founder of the trust. In this deed, all the powers of the trustees are stipulated.

These powers are normally wide so that a trustee can act on behalf of the trust to do anything an ordinary person can do; for example, purchase immovable property.

Certain family members (such as the estate owner and his or her spouse) can be appointed as trustees, but it is preferable to also have an independent outsider appointed. The most suitable person is someone who does not qualify as a beneficiary of the trust and is not a family member of the other trustees and of the beneficiaries.

The benefit of appointing a professional trustee is that family members usually do not have sufficient knowledge and wisdom to administer the trust.

What are your duties as a trustee?

A trustee must always act in the best interests of the beneficiaries and is not allowed to enrich himself through his trusteeship.

Many sound business and other decisions need to be made by a trustee, but it must always be done in the best interests of the beneficiaries.

When the interests of the income and capital beneficiaries are different, a weighting or balancing of these interests is required.

What character traits should you have to make you a good trustee?

An efficient trustee must have good interpersonal skills, be diligent and focused on detail and skilled or trained enough to be able to perform the necessary duties. They must be able to exercise discretion with the necessary objectivity and independence. This means that various alternative routes or solutions to a specific problem might need to be identified.

What training and education do you need to be a trustee?

There is no formal qualification to become a professional trustee. However, the rights, duties and obligations of a trustee are so numerous that I believe a tertiary qualification is required. Legal training and education would definitely be an advantage because they expose you to legal documentation, phrases and definitions as well as court cases and court reports.

What did you want to be when you were a child?

I love sport and considered becoming a professional cricketer, but my studies and passion for my current field of work hampered these aspirations, reducing me to the status of an amateur.

What is the most satisfying part of your job?

I work with people all the time and make decisions - financially and otherwise - that affect their lives enormously. A trust involves an estate planner transferring his growth assets to a trust in order to protect the assets. Legally, a trust operates as a separate entity and theoretically those assets do not belong to the estate owner anymore, but he retains a fond interest in them.

As professional trustee, I become part of the estate planner's decision-making, so my decisions affect his greatest material treasures.

What do you find most challenging about your job?

People do not always understand how a trust works and want to continue dealing with their assets as though none was created.

What type of person would make a good trustee?

Someone who is good at developing and maintaining interpersonal relationships and who is compassionate towards other people, but who also has the strength of character to advise and, sometimes, redirect the thoughts of an estate owner.

What is the best career advice you have ever received and who gave it to you?

Finish your tertiary studies before you start working - from the auditing lecturer at the University of Potchefstroom.

What gets you out of bed every morning to do the work?

The thought that I might come across a whole new challenge in the field of trusts, whether a new amendment to legislation that necessitates a new line of thinking, a new court decision that I need to digest and apply in practice, or a decision I need to take on behalf of the beneficiaries that might require a balancing of interests.

*This article was first published in Sunday Times: Money & Careers