Robert Still (born 1955) is a South African

business magnate A business magnate, also known as an industrialist or tycoon, is a person who is a powerful entrepreneur and investor who controls, through personal enterprise ownership or a dominant shareholding position, a firm or industry whose goods or ser ...

involved in mining and agriculture. His De Rustica estate produces what has been awarded as the world's best olive oil.

Biography

Born in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

, Still graduated from

University of the Witwatersrand The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), commonly known as Wits University or Wits, is a multi-campus Public university, public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg, South Africa. The universit ...

with a

Bachelor of Commerce A Bachelor of Commerce (BCom or B Com) is an undergraduate degree in commerce, accounting, mathematics, economics, and management-related subjects. The degree is mainly offered in Commonwealth nations. Structure Bachelor of Commerce The Bac ...

in 1978 and became a chartered accountant in 1980. He started his career as a partner in Ernst & Whinny, a predecessor to

Ernst & Young EY, previously known as Ernst & Young, is a multinational corporation, multinational professional services partnership, network based in London, United Kingdom. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and PwC, it is one of the Big Four accounting firms, Big F ...

. He entered the mining industry around 1986 to found Rhombus Exploration and became a successful mining entrepreneur. Since then, he has served as chairman and chief executive officer of Southern Mining, a JSE-listed firm. He is also the chief executive of Pangea Exploration. Still founded De Rustica Olive Estate in 2006, and the company first sold olive oil in 2012. During that time, 4,000 hectares (10,000 acres, 40 km2) of farmland was acquired in

Knysna Knysna (; ) is a town with 76,150 inhabitants (2019 mid-year estimates) in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It is one of the destinations on the loosely defined Garden Route tourist route. It is situated 60 kilometres east of the c ...

and 75,000 olive trees were planted. Since its foundation, De Rustica has won multiple awards in the olive oil industry.

References

Living people 1956 births Olive oil Businesspeople from Johannesburg University of the Witwatersrand alumni {{SouthAfrica-business-bio-stub