Adrian Gore left Liberty Life and launched Discovery in 1992 with seed money from the founders of Rand Merchant Bank.
A trainee actuary at 22, Adrian Gore founded Discovery as a medical insurer. It became a diversified financial services group.
Adrian Gore graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand with a degree in actuarial science and in 1986 began his career as a trainee actuary at Liberty Life, an insurance and investment company. He later led product development there.
A new insurer
In 1992 he launched Discovery Limited as a medical insurer in South Africa. He raised seed money from Laurie Dippenaar and other funders who had founded Rand Merchant Bank. Discovery has since evolved from a single insurer into a diversified, multinational financial services and private healthcare group.
Recognition
Ernst and Young named him South Africa’s best entrepreneur in 1998, and the MoneyWeb CEO of the Year awards chose him as the country’s leading CEO in 2004. In 2010 the Sunday Times named him business leader of the year, and in 2016 he was All Africa Businessman of the Year. He chairs the South African chapter of Endeavor, a global non-profit that supports high-impact entrepreneurs.
Gore’s story shows what an employee with specialist skills and a good idea can do: he learned the industry for six years inside a large company, and then built a challenger to it.
