[1] Thereafter he qualified as a mining engineer at the Royal School of Mines, spent six years in Southern Africa with Anglo American, returned to London to pursue an MBA, and then worked for Investec and Ambrian Partners in London before started his own consultancy.
[1][2] In 2000, he returned to South Africa, nominated by Mercury Asset Management to serve as non-executive chairman of Durban Roodepoort Deep (DRD).
[3] From November that year he additionally served as chief executive of the company, initially in an acting capacity.
[1][6] In November 2006, Wellesley-Wood announced that he would retire from his DRD positions at the age of 55, though he said publicly that the board was forcing him out.
[12] At the time of his death he was semi-retired, a financier, and the chief executive of Kefi Minerals, a British mining company.