Cyril Ramaphosa, the South African chosen with the Finnish President, Mr Martti Ahtisaari, to inspect the IRA's arms dumps is a man of many parts. One of the successive public personae which he has assumed over the years should stand him in good stead his latest role. It was as chairman of the Constitutional Assembly from 1994 to 1996, where he displayed the aptitude - and patience - necessary to guide the disparate parliamentary forces towards a broad consensus on a new constitution for post-apartheid South Africa. Though Mr Ramaphosa was the secretary-general of the African National Congress at the time, his ability to take a broader view and facilitate agreement across party political lines is still widely acknowledged today.
The son of a policeman, Mr Ramaphosa (47), like several of his former ANC comrades has turned his intellectual skills to the world of high finance. He is the chairman of Johnnic, which owns Times Media Ltd which, in turn, owns South Africa's biggestselling Sunday newspaper, the Sunday Times, which holds a 50 per cent stake in the influential financial publications, Business Day and the Financial Mail.
Mr Ramaphosa's success on the political terrain - marred only by his failure to become Deputy President under Nelson Mandela - has been matched by his success as a business mogul.
According to Forbes magazine, he is worth R150 million. He has brought to financial manoeuvring the same measured, unhurried manner which characterised his long political career. His recent handling of the contested sale of Molope, a company which he took over as executive chairman, is a manifestation of what the authors of Movers and Shakers, an A-Z of South African Business People, characterise as his "unflappable style".
Ramaphosa's resignation as a director of New Africa Investments Ltd which, until last year, was hailed as the exemplar for black empowerment in business, is another sign that the acumen he showed as a frontline politician has not deserted him. He quit ahead of a share option scandal which suggested that the directors were more interested in self-enrichment than black empowerment.
Former President F. W de Klerk has paid tribute to Mr Ramaphosa's negotiating skills during South Africa's settlement negotiations between 1990 and 1993. He wrote of the former ANC secretary-general: "His silver tongue and honeyed phrases lulled potential victims while his arguments relentlessly tightened around them."
Bobby Godsell, a director of Anglo-American, who faced Mr Ramaphosa across the negotiating table when the latter was the secretary-general of the National Union of Mineworkers, rates him as the best negotiator he faced during the turbulent 1980s.
Mr Ramaphosa will take up his new role with the blessing of President Thabo Mbeki, the man chosen by Mr Mandela to serve as his deputy president.
Mr Ramaphosa said yesterday that confidence-building would be key to a final settlement in the North.