The man who revolutionised medical aid in South Africa

Adrian Gore is the founder and CEO of Discovery, South Africa’s largest medical scheme. The scheme provides health insurance for more than 200,000 companies and 2.8 million people.

According to Forbes, Gore’s net worth is $480 million (R8.77 billion), and many consider him one of the country’s top business leaders.

Education has played an important role in Gore’s success story. Born on 16 May 1964, Gore credits his family for instilling an appreciation for the lasting value of education.

He explained that growing up in such a “knowledge-centric” environment inspired his desire to make an impact in society.

After matriculating from King David School in 1981, he attended the University of the Witwatersrand, obtaining his BSc and BSc (Hons) degrees in Actuarial Science. 

There, he developed finance management skills and an appreciation for institutional scale, which complemented his entrepreneurial mindset.

After graduating from Wits, Gore started his career at Liberty Life, an insurance and investment firm founded by South African entrepreneur Donald Gordon. 

He describes how working in product development at an institutional business allowed him to create real change. “It wasn’t about mathematics or dollars and cents. It was about impact.” 

Historically, medical aid societies provided medical coverage, but in the 1980s, insurance companies started to offer it. Liberty Life was one of those companies that entered this then-new field.

During his time at the company, Gore was instrumental in developing Liberty’s Medical Lifestyle product. 

In 1992, when Gore was only 27 years old, he took the experience he had gained at Liberty and set up Discovery with the backing of Rand Merchant Bank.

It was started and established as a small specialist risk insurance company, and by 1993, Discovery Health was launched. 

Building the company in the early 1990s brought with it much uncertainty due to the instability caused by the process of ending apartheid in South Africa.

Despite the initial difficulties, Discovery persevered to become a healthcare insurer covering half of the South African market and was listed on the JSE in the late 90s. 

Under Gore’s leadership, Discovery has become a global leader in wellness behavioural change through its integration with health and insurance.

The company pioneered a medical health product with the innovative medical savings account concept. 

According to Gore, its global Vitality Health wellness program encapsulates the qualities that have set Discovery apart.

By collecting data and employing behavioural economics, the company incentivises its customers to live healthy lifestyles, which lowers the cost of care.

This data allows for a preventative rather than a reactive approach to healthcare. Discovery’s robust and detailed data collection practices even allowed it to track the Omicron variant of Covid-19 when it was first discovered in South Africa. 

More recently, Discovery entered the financial services industry with Vitality Money, a shared-value bank that rewards customers for managing their finances well by offering lower interest rates for borrowing and higher returns on savings. 

Gore explained the relationship between financial health and physical well-being, saying that several factors influence what could be termed “financial mortality”.

“Instead of a mortality curve, you’ve got a credit default curve – people borrow and can’t pay it back.”

With over a million accounts, Discovery’s financial services component continues to expand. The goal is to incorporate all of the Vitality programs together to holistically reward customers for leading healthier and more sustainable lifestyles.

The Discovery Group has become an international diversified financial group operating in South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States and China.

Gore explained that improving customers’ quality of life continues to motivate him as the company grows in South Africa and other markets. 

Today, the company is the largest medical scheme in South Africa, providing cover for approximately 2.8 million people. 

The group has more than 13,000 employees and has expanded its international reach to 41 markets globally. 

Discovery and Gore have been recognised many times for their accomplishments in the business world. 

In 1998, he was named South Africa’s Best Entrepreneur by Ernst & Young and, in 2004, was chosen as the country’s leading CEO in the Moneyweb CEO of the Year Awards. 

He received the Investec Award for Career Contribution in 2008 and was named the Sunday Times Business Leader of the Year in 2010. 

In 2017, he earned the Frost & Sullivan Visionary Innovation Leadership Award for Africa and the Ernst & Young Global Lifetime Achiever Award for Entrepreneurship. 

In addition to his South African position, Gore is the Chairman of Destiny Health in the USA, Prudential Health in the United Kingdom, and the South African Board of Jewish Education. 

Alongside these accolades, he actively promotes entrepreneurship in South Africa.

Throughout the company’s growth, he has also led non-profit organisations such as Endeavor South Africa to foster entrepreneurship and highlight “business as a force for good.” 

With such ventures, he emphasises the importance of entrepreneurship and private-public relationships as vehicles for social change. 

He hopes that young entrepreneurs can view his company and the organizations he’s worked with as examples, inspiring further change to create jobs, wealth, and opportunity in South Africa.