He graduated with a BA Honours (Economics) and B Ed degrees from the university of Limpopo and obtained a Postgraduate Diploma (PDM Bus Admin) from Wits Business School as well as Management Diploma from De Montfort University in the UK. His career started as a teacher where he taught Maths and Economics at Motlakaro and Hwiti High Schools in Limpopo Province. He later joined Spoornet as a professional officer and was soon promoted to assistant marketing manager. The lure of the technology was strong enough for him to join Telkom SA where he served in various management positions in marketing, business process re-engineering and wholesale business and as senior manager in strategic planning.
The foray beyond South Africa's borders followed when he joined Leo Burnett as client services director doing brand development for Celtel (now Zain), a cellular operator in various African countries. He also worked as a strategic planner for other brands at the time. His keen insight and knowledge of the world of technology and geo-political dynamics saw him joining Denel Land Systems as executive manager responsible for marketing, strategic relations and special projects. He was later moved to Denel PMP in similar capacity where he provided leadership in marketing and business development initiatives in more than thirty countries covering all the five continents.
In his new position, Petje oversees overall business development as well as key strategic transformation initiatives to ensure not only business sustainability of this vertically integrated entity, but to lead the organisation towards contributing meaningfully to the national developmental agenda set out by the government.
Petje's appointment as CEO comes after 11 years in the Denel Group of which eight years as executive manager marketing at PMP and as deputy CEO since 1 July 2012. He has strong leadership abilities, a sound knowledge of the Denel Group and of PMP's operations and significant business issues. He understands the local and international defence environment and has built strong relationships with the customers. Petje has made valuable contribution to business growth in terms of sales and the entitiy's turnaround to profitability. His experience in the defence environment covers land systems and related ammunition business.
He will continue to ensure business growth, and to reinforce PMP's position as a reliable supplier of world class military and commercial ammunition products and components. He will be ably supported in his new role by his executive team.
