JAN DU PLESSIS sounds almost indignant when The Times’s photographer asks him to pose with a cigarette in his mouth. “I don’t smoke,” he says with a forced smile.

It seems that nowadays smoking is not a prerequisite to being chairman of a global cigarette giant such as British American Tobacco. In fact, being British is also no longer a given: South African-born du Plessis became last year the first non-Briton to chair century-old BAT in more than 80 years.

These are not the only “firsts” achieved by du Plessis, an affable, energetic chartered accountant who speaks at a high rate of knots and whose Afrikaans accent is still strong.

By virtue of his position at BAT and two key City appointments this year — he joined RHM as non-executive chairman in the lead-up to the flotation in July of the Hovis bread baker, and joined the board of Lloyds TSB as a non-executive director last month — du Plessis has emerged as a powerful figure in the City. He made his debut in this year’s Times Power 100 list of the most influential FTSE directors at No 11, becoming the highest-ranked new entrant.

At 51 he is younger than each of the ten directors who precede him in the list and he has a portfolio of directorships that could see him progress up the list in coming years. It will be no surprise to Maarten van den Bergh, the Power 100’s leader: it was Van den Bergh, the Lloyds TSB chairman, who singled out du Plessis this year as an ideal recruit for the high street bank’s boardroom.

“Jan brings a terrific range of experience and will be a great asset to our (Lloyds TSB) board,” Van den Bergh said. “He is also a very approachable person, which makes him easy to work with.”

Despite his relatively low public profile, du Plessis is no stranger to the City. He has spent the past 23 years living in either the UK or Switzerland and has had extensive dealings with the institutional shareholder community in Britain through his former role as group finance director of Richemont, the luxury goods giant.

After graduating with business and law degrees from the University of Stellenbosch, du Plessis abandoned an earlier ambition of joining the legal profession in favour of a career in finance. Anton Rupert, the billionaire South African entrepreneur who created the Rembrandt conglomerate, offered him a job and became a pivotal figure in du Plessis’s career.

When Rupert separated Rembrandt’s non-South African assets in the 1980s, du Plessis was sent to Switzerland to run the newly formed Compagnie Financière Richemont and rates the experience as the most important business event in his life. “The project not only presented us with unusual technical challenges but — as effectively the first major South African company obtaining a foreign listing — it was widely acclaimed as a bold and adventurous move.”

At the time, Richemont’s assets included a controlling stake in the Rothmans International tobacco company and a string of luxury goods brands. The turning point came in 1999, when Rothmans was sold by Richemont and Rembrandt, which retained an equity position in Rothmans, to BAT in return for what today is a combined 27.9 per cent stake, worth £7.7 billion. The deal opened BAT’s boardroom door for du Plessis, who joined as a non-executive director.

BAT, the Lucky Strike and Kent cigarette maker, gained key brands such as Rothmans, Dunhill, Peter Stuyvesant and Winfield. Richemont was left with a quality stable of luxury brands including Cartier jewellery, Mont Blanc pens and Vacheron Constantin watches, and today is the second-biggest luxury goods company in the world by turnover. Coupled with its BAT stake, Richemont is one of the Swiss Exchange’s biggest companies.

Du Plessis’s ascension to the BAT chairmanship in July last year confirmed his status as a future City leader. His financial expertise, corporate experience and lack of Old School baggage has made him an attractive boardroom candidate.

Earlier this year, Doughty Hanson chose du Plessis as chairman for RHM, the Hovis bread maker that the private equity firm was preparing to float. Du Plessis pocketed £150,000 for his pre-flotation work, with a similar amount due as the chairman’s salary.

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