Director of Executive Communications: Google

Alan Eagle

Alan has been a Director of Executive Communications at Google since joining the company in 2007.  In his current role he oversees a set of Google sales programs and the company’s Partner Plex client experience center.  Prior to that, he was the communications lead for the Google product team, where he developed speeches and other communications for executives including Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, Marissa Mayer, and Susan Wojcicki.  He is the co-author, with Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg, of the New York Times bestselling books How Google Works and Trillion Dollar Coach. Alan has held sales and product management roles at several Silicon Valley start-ups, including Tellme Networks and Octel Communications.  He is a Northern California native with a computer science degree from Dartmouth College and an MBA from The Wharton School.

Co-Managing Partner: Knife Capital

Andrea Bohmert

Andrea is Co-Managing Partner of Venture Capital firm Knife Capital.

Having grown up in Germany, she has a Masters Degree from the Technical University in Aachen, Germany and a MBA from Henley Management College in the UK. After years in industry, she has spent the last 14 years as an investor, working with technology companies and assisting them to scale internationally. Before joining Knife Capital, Andrea was the Founding Partner at Hasso Plattner Ventures Africa. As an ecosystem activist, she believes that technology entrepreneurs have a significant influence on the future through the development of Intellectual Property, skills transfer, employment creation, creating role models and by building significant sustainable businesses.

Knife Capital is an independent Venture Capital investment firm focusing on innovation-driven ventures with proven traction. By leveraging knowledge, networks & funding, Knife Capital accelerates the international expansion of entrepreneurial businesses that achieved a product/market fit in a beachhead market. Knife Capital has offices in Cape Town and London and invests via a consortium of funds under management, including SARS section 12J Venture Capital Company: KNF Ventures and Draper Gain Investments.

Partner: 4Di Capital

Anton van Vlaarderen

Anton is an entrepreneur, angel investor and venture capitalist having been involved in venture capital since 2009 and officially becoming a 4Di partner on the launch of the 4Di Capital Fund I in 2011. In addition to overlooking several portfolio investments, Anton is responsible for the general management and oversight of the funds’ operations.

Prior to 2009 Anton, along with his father Erik van Vlaanderen, launched and successfully owner managed a fresh fruit export marketing business for seven years. During this period, he was also involved in all angel investment activities pursued by 4Di Group, a private family office investment vehicle. His primary focus today are his venture capital activities while also playing an advisory role for ESET Southern Africa, a 4Di Group company and has made a number of angel investments.

Anton holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of South Africa and a Postgraduate Diploma in Management from the University of Cape Town.

CEO: FyreFem Fund Managers

Cathy Goddard

Cathy is the CEO of FyreFem Fund Managers (Firebird went through a name change), a South African women-owned Gender and Impact private equity GP. Cathy has been a board member of SAVCA since September 2016. She is an Investment Committee member of Spear Capital, a Scandinavian fund which provides $2-10 million of funding in Africa. Cathy is a FSCA registered Key Individual for Firebird, Edge Growth and Spear Capital. She is also incubating two venture capital firms for FSCA purposes. Cathy was voted 5th in the 10 Power Women Shaping Africa’s Private Equity Market by AfkInsider.com in the Fall 2015 Edition of Women in Private Equity Awards.

Principal: SA SME Fund

Claudia Manning

Claudia Manning is a Principal at the SA SME Fund, a R1.4 billion fund established by the CEOs of the largest 40 corporates in South Africa to invest in growing small and medium businesses.

Claudia has spent the last 15 years mainly in the investment area, initially as an investment transactor at a development finance institution, focusing on the infrastructure sector, later as a shareholder and executive director of an investment holding company.

She has extensive governance experience, having served on numerous Boards as a non-executive director, including financial institutions such as the DBSA and PIC, where she also served on the investment committees. She is currently a non-executive director of JSE listed Adcock Ingram, and Chairs the board of social enterprise, Mondi Zimele.

Managing Partner: Kingson Capital

Gavin Reardon

Gavin is the Founder and Managing Partner of Kingson Capital. Gavin provides strategic leadership to the development of the Kingson funds and portfolio construction of the underlying businesses.

Gavin is a qualified Chartered Accountant and is registered with the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants.

Kingson is a venture firm based in South Africa and provides venture investment for early stage seed, post seed and series A rounds for startups focusing on emerging technology, particularly in Africa. Kingson is backed by Silicon Valley-based investors and supported by the United States Government, via the United States Agency for International Development. Kingson’s Fund Two is a $100M fund dedicated to investing in startups in Africa, with a special focus on South African based startups.

Gavin’s key strengths lie in identifying and developing business opportunities, strategy and business development, innovation and business leadership.

Gavin sits on the boards of several startups, acts as an advisor and mentor for South African based accelerators and also co-founded a not-for-profit investment holding company that supports non-profits and charitable foundations.

Head of Alternative Investments Services: RisCura

Heleen Goussard

With over 16 years’ experience, Heleen heads up the alternative investment team at RisCura – a market leader in investment solutions in emerging markets such as Africa and China, with $200bn in assets under management. Under her leadership, the previous core independent valuations service offering has been successfully expanded to include a wide-range of alternative investment services that cover asset classes such as private equity, infrastructure and private debt.

She also oversees industry-recognised research such as Bright Africa and the RisCura-SAVCA South Africa Private Equity Performance report. Heleen is an expert on alternative investments and her knowledge and experience is often called on by industry bodies for comment on key industry papers. In addition, her thought leadership articles are often published by well-known media outlets. She is a regular speaker at prominent industry events

where she provides insight into the industry and RisCura’s research. She previously worked as a corporate finance partner at PKF Inc. Heleen has a CA (SA), is a CFA charterholder and has a master’s degree in finance, focused on valuation from UCT.

Head of International and European Affairs Department: BPI France

Isabelle Bébéar

Isabelle BEBEAR joined Bpifrance (formerly CDC Entreprises) in 2001. She is currently Head of
International Affairs. Before, she was Head of Business Development and support for SMEs, Head of
Investments in French regional private equity funds and in South-Mediterranean countries, with nearly
€300m under management. Isabelle previously worked in the pharmaceutical industry, as international
human resources manager. Isabelle graduated from the Institut Supérieur de Gestion (International business school).

Isabelle is also President of the Management Board of Euromed Capital Association. She is a director on the board of Proparco (AFD Group) and a director of CAEI, African Entrepreneurship and Innovation Council.

Knight of the National Order of Merit since 2014.

CEO: Grovest

Jeff Miller

Jeff is the CEO of Grovest and owns multiple businesses. He is a co-founder of Grovest Corporate Advisory, MeTTa Capital Managers, Decentral (prev. Grovest Energy), Grovest Hospitality, Mdluli Safari Lodge and Sunstone Capital Limited. He is a member of the sub-committee of The Southern African Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, both focused on Venture Capital. He has over 30 years of investing in unquoted companies across numerous industries and is a Section 12J and Start-up specialist. He co-founded Brandcorp, which was listed on the JSE in 1997. He is also the co-founder of KNR Flatrock, Balboa Finance, Born Free Properties, Eurosuit, Bride & Co, Redwood Capital, Incred Finance and Seed Academy.

Senior Lecturer: Gordon Institute of Business Science

Dr. Jonathan Marks

Dr. Jonathan Marks is currently Senior Lecturer at the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science, where he is faculty lead for the MBA entrepreneurship focus. Dr. Marks has an MBA from the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) Graduate School of Business, as well as a PhD, focused on entrepreneurship education, from UCT’s Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment.  He was founding director of the Raymond Ackerman Academy of Entrepreneurial Development (located at UCT) and was Academic-in-Residence at the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation, having previously held the position of Head of Impact Assurance.  Dr. Marks is Founder of RocketSchool, a dedicated entrepreneurship start-up business school, and was National Dean of the School of Business Innovation and Technology for AFDA, South Africa’s premier film and television school.

He has taught and researched in the area of entrepreneurship, business planning, new venture planning, innovation, international new ventures, technology ventures, corporate innovation & entrepreneurship, and family business for over fifteen years.  His teaching and research have crossed a range of disciplines including commerce, science, engineering, sustainability, mathematics and the humanities.  Dr Marks recently completed and published work related to small growing businesses in the manufacturing sector and their work in the Green Economy; this work was commission by the JP Morgan Chase Foundation. He has worked in and outside the classroom with a wide range of South African and multi-national firms including Nedbank, Anglo Gold Ashanti, Wesbank (part of the First Rand Group), RCL Foods, Sanlam and Woolworths Financial Services.  Research and consulting clients include The World Bank Institute, Free University Amsterdam, the National Planning Commission, and the Western Cape Provincial Government.

 

Investment Professional: Nedbank CIB Venture Capital and Alternative Investment

Kashira Naidoo

Kashira is an experienced tech entrepreneur, chartered accountant and venture capitalist.  Before entering the investment space, she is the co-founder of two South African technology companies and has also co-founded one of the largest polyurethane foam manufacturing business in sub-Saharan Africa.  She is currently part of Nedbank Venture Capital, where she responsible for the evaluation of tech investments opportunities, investment valuations, financial modelling and deal sourcing. Over and above her Venture Capital responsibilities, she has been worked in the Nedbank Disruption and Innovation team where she has built networks and sourced top quality technology companies from around the world (San Francisco, New York, South-East Asia, Singapore, Bangalore, Israel etc).  She has also completed the Oxford University (UK) Fintech Programme. Kashira believes it is important to unlock opportunities of technology companies on the African continent and aims to form a bridge between other emerging technologies onto the African continent. She believes that by addressing the significant funding gaps and through investing in technological innovation within emerging economies, it will create a meaningful impact on many lives and the world as a whole.

CEO: The SA SME Fund

Ketso Gordhan

Ketso has operated for many years in the private equity and impact investing space. His positions and roles have included Head of Private Equity at FirstRand for almost a decade; managing a personal impact investment portfolio with a focus on education in SA and Rwanda; serving as Africa advisor to the Omidyar Network; and Head of Africa for the Commonwealth Development Corporation where he led the Africa investment strategy for the UK government’s development finance arm.

In addition to this expertise, Ketso was the first post-apartheid Director General in the Ministry of Transport; the City Manager for the City of Johannesburg during 1999-2000; and an advisor to the Minister for Monitoring and Evaluation in the Presidency in 2009-2010. In the latter role, he sought to develop and institute performance outcome metrics and targets for all government ministries.

Ketso has served on numerous private sector, foundation and non-profit boards of directors. He was an advisor to the World Bank Urban Sector on Municipal Restructuring, is an Aspen Global Leadership Fellow (a member of the Aspen Institute’s African Leadership Initiative), and in 2000, was elected a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader for Tomorrow.

Ketso also has a long and illustrious history as an anti-apartheid activist and leader, in both the United Democratic Front and in the ANC.

Investment Principal: Summit Africa

Langa Madonko

Langa Madonko is a Co- Founder of Summit Africa a Niche Alternative Investment Manager focused on delivering superior financial returns to investors on a risk adjusted basis whilst achieving meaningful socio-economic impact and Transformation through investment in Private Equity and Social Infrastructure.

Langa joined the SAVCA Board of Directors in October 2018.

 

Principal: Africa Trust Group

Lelemba Phiri

Lelemba Phiri is the Principal at Africa Trust Group – the fund manager for Africa of the R100m US-based Enygma Ventures fund. Enygma Ventures is the first VC focused on investing in women entrepreneurs in Southern Africa (SADC). She is a gender-lens angel investor and an award winning educator and entrepreneur. With more than 16 years of work experience across 8 sub-Saharan countries which included scaling a fintech startup across several African markets, Lelemba is committed to investing in the growth and development of women leaders and entrepreneurs in Africa. 

Lelemba has won several awards including being named one of 50 people advancing gender equality in South Africa and one of Afrca’s most influential women in business. She is currently a PhD Candidate at GIBS and holds a Masters Degree in Development Finance with distinction from UCT GSB. She is a UK Certified Chartered Accountant (FCCA) and also holds a BSc in Applied Accounting (Hon) from the Oxford Brookes University (UK). 

Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer: Clickatell

Pieter de Villiers

Pieter de Villiers is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Clickatell, the global leader in personalised priority messaging. Pieter has established Clickatell as a leading mobile messaging provider, enabling enterprises and consumers to benefit via mobile. Pieter led the company and its employees through a decade of robust growth and innovation. Clickatell delivers SMs messages through its Clickatell Gateway to mobile users through more than 960 networks in more than 220 countries. Pieter kicked off his career as an optometrist before making a radical shift by accepting an opportunity to join Micrologix in 1998; where he quickly realized the potential of the internet and its intersection with mobility. The key opportunity he managed to identify in 1999 was the need for an application-to-person SMS service that would create a massive messaging gateway. Since co-founding the company in 2000, Pieter has grown Clickatell exponentially, with special focus on providing services to the financial sector, social communities and other vertical markets. Today, Clickatell serves 28,000 enterprises and reaches millions of people.

Along with his work with Clickatell and the mobile industry, Pieter is also an active participant in socially responsible organizations and programs and founded SiMODiSA.org. This organization works on enabling entrepreneurship in South Africa and Africa.  https://www.linkedin.com/in/pieterdevilliers/

Founder and CEO: Sanari Capital

Samantha Pokroy

Samantha is the founder and CEO of Sanari Capital, a private equity firm investing in the lower mid-market, with a specialization in founder-run, owner-managed and family-owned businesses. Samantha has fifteen years of private equity and venture capital experience in the South African and United States markets. She played a leading role in investments at Ethos Private Equity, prior to which she worked in private equity in Chicago and investment banking and consulting in New York.

Samantha holds an MBA (Hons) from the University of Chicago, a BCom and BA Honours degree in Industrial Psychology from University of the Witwatersrand and is a CFA Charter Holder.

CEO: SAVCA

Tanya van Lill

Tanya joined SAVCA in March 2017, after a rewarding 10-year career at the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) with her last role being Director of Academic Programmes where she also served on the board of the Executive MBA Council (EMBAC), an international academic association that represents the Executive MBA industry.

Tanya is passionate about human and organisational development. During her time as a learning and development specialist focusing on management and leadership development, Tanya gained valuable experience working with various companies across a wide range of sectors.  She holds an MBA and Post-Graduate Diploma from GIBS where her MBA research focused on methods to develop a global mindset.  Tanya also holds a BCom Informatics and Honours in Business Management from UNISA.

Tanya is also a South African PowerLifter .

Co-founding partner and principal: Digital Africa Ventures

Thandeka Xaba

Thandeka is a co-founding partner and principal at Digital Africa Ventures. She holds a Bachelor of Business Science in Finance and Accounting from the University of Cape Town. She qualified as a Chartered Accountant at Investec Bank Limited, where she spent five years gaining a combination of credit, Africa lending and investment banking experience. In addition, she is an Allan Gray Fellow, the founder of GlamAlly, a beauty tech start-up, and Tariro Foundation, a youth development NPO. Through these ventures she fulfills her passion is to use entrepreneurship for positive change.

Portfolio Head and Co-CEO: Edge Growth Ventures

Thapelo Masoko

Thapelo has been at Edge Growth since 2013 and currently co-leads the Edge Growth Ventures business unit. Before that, he was Fund Head for the Edge Action Fund. He looked after the P&L and balance sheet of the Fund as well as its strategy, with a specific focus on client relations, as well as managing the SME investments and post-investment support team.

Thapelo spent his first 2 years at Edge working in the Vumela ED Fund where he focused on providing business development support to the portfolio SMEs across a few industries. This included strategy development, monitoring execution, monthly financial reviews and reporting on the progress of the portfolio companies, delivering on strategic interventions and continually modelling future financial performance of the entire portfolio.

Prior to joining Edge, Thapelo was in the defense industry for 4 years where he worked for BAE Systems and then later DCD Protected Mobility. During this time Thapelo was designing and manufacturing armored mine-protected military vehicles and their weaponry systems. Before leaving the industry Thapelo was the lead design engineer for a vehicle product specifically targeted towards the broader African market for use in the police forces.