Prior to 1983, George Coetzee worked for government, semi-government and private organisations in South Africa. He gained valuable experience in staff selection, human resources research as well as training and development which included the application of the assessment centre technique for different purposes. In 1983 he joined Naspers Ltd, now a diversified multinational media company with interests in both the print and electronic media in more than 130 countries. He ultimately became the Human Resources Executive for the Group.

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Since 1998 until his retirement in 2008, he was the Group Company Secretary

whilst retaining some high level human resources responsibilities. He remains involved with the Group on a part-time basis.

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George first gained exposure to assessment centres at Infoplan, a subsidiary of the Armscor Group in the earlier eighties. When joining the Naspers Group, the review and realignment of their assessment centre for senior leaders was a first priority. To fulfill in the need for the assessment and development of senior editorial leaders, a fairly unique development centre was developed using typical real-life editorial situations. In the early nineties, he developed a learning centre for successors for senior management positions. The key focus was to prepare them for the key strategic challenges of the Group using assessment centre technology, action learning and coaching. He was asked to do a presentation on this initiative at the 1995 International Assessment Centre Congress in Kansas City, USA.

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George served as the chair of the Assessment Centre Study Group of South Africa from 1989 until 1995.

George holds a MBA (1979) and a DBA (1989) from the University of Pretoria. He was one of the first registered Master HR Practitioners in South Africa. He is also a former board member of the SA Board for People Practices.