When Rui Morais stepped into the CEO role at Dis-Chem in mid-2023, he inherited more than a prominent retail pharmacy brand. He took on the task of evolving a founder-led business into a more scalable health-care platform.
Now, 1,000 days into the job, Morais’s tenure has seen a cultural reset, an ambitious integrated health-care strategy and a sharpened focus on affordability in a strained consumer economy. Morais, previously CFO of the company, took over from long-serving CEO Ivan Saltzman, who founded Dis-Chem in 1978.
One of the first things he did as CEO was to conduct what he describes as a “culture” survey across Dis-Chem’s roughly 20,000 employees to see if they were in alignment with management’s vision of the brand.
The result, he says, showed almost unanimous support.
“What was interesting going through that cultural process for me was how myself and all other staff saw the brand. We saw it in exactly the same way. It was a brand that we all believe will disrupt health care,” Morais said.
“We have this responsibility to increase access and reduce cost. And it was very welcoming and super comforting that 20,000 people saw it in that same way.
“There was a lot of change, and we facilitated a lot of things. We built an innovation hub that is starting to change the way we retail. We reimagined our strategic direction. One of the highlights for me was the investment we made in culture.”
Having worked alongside Saltzman for more than a decade — effectively co-running the business for several years — he entered the top job with deep operational and strategic familiarity.
The transition was relatively natural for me. In my role as CFO ... I probably was spending about 80% of my time running the business alongside Ivan
— Rui Morais
“The transition was relatively natural for me. In my role as CFO ... I probably was spending about 80% of my time running the business alongside Ivan. So the transition for me was, commercially, very seamless. The tougher part was moving from running the business alongside Ivan to just running the business.”
Morais, 42 this year, has doubled down on transforming Dis-Chem from a traditional retail pharmacy into an integrated health-care provider with a range of offerings, including virtual doctor consultations, life cover and medical insurance. At its clinics it offers services such as family planning and baby vaccinations that are paid for by the state.
At the centre of this model is what Morais calls “owning the script” — capturing and managing patient prescriptions. This, he argues, creates both defensive strength against competitors and a gateway into broader health-care services.
Dis-Chem dominates the field when it comes to dispensary retail. Customers who come to have their prescriptions filled tend to make additional in-store purchases and perhaps also sign up for medical and life insurance.
“I have this firm belief that the thing that makes us different and very defensive against any South African retailer is the ability to own the script. Now, when you own the script, you protect everything else that you retail; at the same time, you have an incredible ability to deliver health care as a function of script ownership.”
The group’s health insurance arm is already profitable. The newer life insurance business is still in a “growth phase” but is showing promising progress, particularly in offering affordable cover to higher-risk consumers with chronic conditions, said Morais.
He said a key lever is the loyalty programme, which incentivises customers to engage more actively with its pharmacy and health-care services. “We are increasing access to health care at affordable rates.”
Dis-Chem plans to open 40 stores this year, compared with a record 33 last year. At the end of its financial 2025 the company had 285 retail pharmacy stores. It also owns Baby City, which has 45 stores.
Despite its scale, Dis-Chem remains largely a South African story, with a limited presence in Botswana. Morais is not chasing aggressive pan-African expansion; the opportunity to deliver affordable health care is in South Africa, he said, citing regulatory changes that made it possible to reach a wider, underserved market.
Morais said innovation — particularly through the company’s innovation hub “X, bigly labs” — will remain central. “We really want to push the boundaries in terms of how we think about innovative health care delivery.”
He foresees further development of the rewards programme to drive down costs and greater digitisation of health care. “That’s what I think you can expect in the next 1,000 days, and hopefully beyond.”
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