Rugby World Cup winner: The making of a resilient leader

Bob Skinstad’s career offers a useful counterpoint to the dominant narrative of leadership as linear progression. His journey from precocious rugby talent to World Cup winner and later business leader is defined less by uninterrupted success than by scrutiny, recalibration and the ability to perform when the spotlight has moved elsewhere.

Long before he became a partner at challenger consultancy Elixirr, Skinstad learned lessons that now resonate deeply in boardrooms: how to operate inside complex systems, how to manage reputation under pressure and how leadership often matures only after ego has been stripped away. Rugby provided the arena, but the principles extend far beyond sport.

Skinstad was born in what was then Rhodesia before his family relocated to South Africa. His ambitious streak emerged early on. During his high school years at Hilton College and later at Stellenbosch University, he deliberately sought out competitive environments.

“It was an environment which was so competitive that it just helps to sharpen the blade,” he says of Stellenbosch. Rather than being intimidated by proximity to elite performers, he embraced it.

Looking back on the early days of his career in the 1990s, Skinstad speaks with affection because of the uncertainty. “Rugby was not a vocation when I grew up,” he says. “You couldn’t do it for a living.”

That changed almost overnight in 1995 when the game turned professional. With it came exposure, money and an intensity few young players were equipped to manage. “You’re 21, travelling the world playing a game for a living that you couldn’t have done two or three years before,” he reflects, recalling his rise with Western Province and the Stormers. “But there’s a huge amount of enjoyment in that as well.”

Skinstad made his debut for South Africa against England in 1997, but his introduction to the national setup came with its own challenges. While race-based divisions were a defining trait of the apartheid era, a separate divide between white Afrikaans and English-speaking groups seeped into the Springbok environment. However, Skinstad responded not by retreating but by building relationships.

“Unless you break that mould, what are you going to do?” he asks. “You’re just going to hate somebody for something that he never did?”

Two years after his international debut, a serious car accident thrust him into the national spotlight just months before the 1999 Rugby World Cup. His selection ahead of outgoing captain, Gary Teichmann, became a lightning rod for criticism. When the Springboks finished third, the team was branded a failure by the press and public alike.

By 2004, after a short spell playing in Wales, Skinstad walked away from professional rugby: “I thought, ‘if I’m 28 and I stop playing rugby, what the hell am I going to do for a living?’”

Unlike many modern-day athletes, he had pursued entrepreneurial ventures and spent time at one of South Africa’s biggest marketing companies. That experience led to a role at Saatchi & Saatchi.

His return to rugby came not through nostalgia but challenge. Playing for amateur side Richmond and the Barbarians invitational team, a friend who was also a physiotherapist pushed him to confront whether he had truly explored his limits.

A new training regime reignited his love for the game. Soon after came a call from a domestic team in South Africa. Skinstad set a clear personal goal for this stint at the Sharks: “I told myself I was going back to win the 2007 World Cup. If you don’t aim for the stars, you don’t even clear the trees.”

He recalls driving to training in his second week back and hearing a talk-radio show debating his return. “The host asked, ‘Should Bob Skinstad have come back to play for the Sharks?’,” he says. “Not one person said yes. It’s probably the best thing that happened to me.”

In 2007, Skinstad lifted the World Cup as a squad leader who no longer needed the spotlight. His evolution from individual performer to enabling leader is one many struggle to make. “The second half of my career was more about what everybody else was doing and how I could help,” he says.

That mindset shift carried into business. Through venture capital at Knife Capital and later consultancy leadership roles in London, Skinstad focused on building ecosystems rather than pursuing heroics.

Today, as a partner at Elixirr, he describes the company as operating much like a high-performing sports team, working with clients from strategy through execution to drive innovation, digital transformation and scalable growth.

What ultimately defines Skinstad’s leadership is adaptability rooted in values. He consistently chose environments that sharpened him, relationships that challenged him and goals that extended personal validation. He learned to absorb criticism without being defined by it and to evolve without discarding experience.

For business leaders navigating constant disruption, his journey offers a quiet but powerful reminder: visibility arrives before certainty; criticism often precedes growth; and leadership matures when the focus shifts from proving yourself to enabling others.

In a world obsessed with immediate outcomes, Skinstad’s career both on and off the field demonstrates the value of playing the long game.