Speakers
10 September 2026 | Hazendal Wine Estate, Stellenbosch, Cape Town
MC: Samke Mhlongo
Global MC and Moderator
Samke Mhlongo
Samke Mhlongo is a commercialisation strategist, global speaker and bestselling author, trusted to lead high-level conversations as MC and moderator across corporate, financial and institutional stages.
Her work has taken her across 12 countries, leading conversations across finance and investment, fintech, sales and strategy. She brings nearly two decades of professional experience spanning private banking, brand strategy and commercial advisory — including a seven-year tenure at Investec Private Bank — giving her the commercial fluency to engage senior leaders, interrogate complex subject matter and move comfortably between the boardroom and the main stage.
Beyond the stage, Samke is the founder of The Next Chapter Global, where she advises subject-matter experts and business leaders on strategic positioning, thought leadership and the commercialisation of expertise. Her debut book, Ringfence, is a national bestseller.
Aalia Manie
Aalia Manie
Aalia is a lawyer by training, with the DNA of an entrepreneur and technologist. She is currently the Managing Director of Webber Wentzel Fusion, the applied AI and legal operations subsidiary of leading African law firm, Webber Wentzel. She oversaw Webber Wentzel's first start-up incubator, advocates for an enabling regulatory environment for innovation and is a regular speaker at industry conferences. She is also a published thought leader on AI, innovation, IP commercialisation, and exchange control.
Anusha Naidu
Anusha Naidu
Anusha Naidu is a South African Chartered Accountant and senior corporate finance executive with over two decades of experience across domestic and international capital markets. She specialises in capital raising, structured finance, mergers and acquisitions, and strategic corporate development within the financial services sector. In her most recent role as Corporate Finance Executive at a boutique non-bank lender, she led capital strategy, investor relations and ESG initiatives, successfully raising capital through listed debt and equity programmes, private placements and private credit across a diverse global investor base including institutional investors, development finance institutions, impact investors, family offices and retail participants. Earlier in her career, she held advisory roles across PwC offices in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Dubai and London, concluding in PwC London’s M&A Advisory practice where she led complex buy-side and sell-side transactions for private equity firms, hedge funds, investment banks and retail banks.
Alison Collier
Anusha Naidu
Anusha Naidu is a South African Chartered Accountant and senior corporate finance executive with over two decades of experience across domestic and international capital markets. She specialises in capital raising, structured finance, mergers and acquisitions, and strategic corporate development within the financial services sector. In her most recent role as Corporate Finance Executive at a boutique non-bank lender, she led capital strategy, investor relations and ESG initiatives, successfully raising capital through listed debt and equity programmes, private placements and private credit across a diverse global investor base including institutional investors, development finance institutions, impact investors, family offices and retail participants. Earlier in her career, she held advisory roles across PwC offices in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Dubai and London, concluding in PwC London’s M&A Advisory practice where she led complex buy-side and sell-side transactions for private equity firms, hedge funds, investment banks and retail banks.
Anne-Marie Chidzero
Anne-Marie Chidzero
Anne-Marie is CIO of FSD Africa Investments, the investment arm of FSD Africa. She is the former CEO of FSD Mozambique and Co-founder of Alitheia IDF Managers, a private equity fund manager investing in women-led businesses.
Anne-Marie has a wealth of experience in building African financial markets. Throughout her career, she has led a range of development finance investments and implemented strategies for private-sector growth, in roles at the World Bank Group, CGAP, and UK Aid – among other development finance institutions. She has held Board and Advisory positions at pioneering inclusive finance organisations in Africa.
Anthony Costa
Head of Secretariat, B20 South Africa
Anthony Costa
Dr Anthony Costa is the Head of Secretariat for B20 South Africa, responsible for the hosting of the Business 20 under the South African G20 Presidency, and the ongoing development of an African private-sector platform based on the B20 recommendations and legacy initiatives.
He worked previously in the Private Office of the President of South Africa, leading the President's Investment Mobilisation Programme, and participating in several initiatives between government and the private sector. He is on full-time secondment from Nedbank Group Limited, where he has worked in retail and investment banking, insurance and asset management.
Anthony holds BA(Hons) and LLB degrees from Wits University, an MBA from the Gordon Institute of Business Studies (University of Pretoria), and a PhD in History from the University of Cambridge (Trinity College). He is an admitted advocate of the High Court of South Africa and former member of the Johannesburg Bar.
Brigitte Binneman
Deputy Director: Innovation Instruments, DSTI
Brigitte Binneman
Brigitte is an investment finance professional with over 10 years' experience in funding and supporting technology development and innovation in the public sector across a range of technology areas and economic sectors. She brings extensive experience from her prior roles at the Technology Innovation Agency, and currently serves as the Deputy Director: Innovation Instruments.
Cuma Dube
Cuma Dube
Cuma is an ESG and sustainable finance professional with over a decade’s experience working at the intersection of enterprise sustainability, impact measurement and investment decision-making. His work focuses on helping investors, corporates and development finance actors integrate ESG and impact considerations into funding models, business strategies and long-term sustainability planning across emerging markets, particularly South Africa.
Cuma has led the development of impact management frameworks, developmental investment policies and ESG strategies for a wide range of clients, including pension funds, listed corporates, private equity firms and banks. His experience spans enterprise sustainability analysis, and advisory support to senior decision-makers on how funding structures and ESG considerations translate into real economic and social outcomes. He has also provided training and advisory support to boards on governance and oversight of sustainability and responsible investing strategies.
His professional background includes senior roles in ESG advisory and business sustainability, as well as hands-on experience in project finance and infrastructure development, including renewable energy projects and capital raising for sustainable investments. This combination gives him a practical understanding of how programme and funding design choices affect enterprise performance, resilience and long-term impact.
Craig Wing
Craig Wing
Dr. Craig Wing is a globally recognised futurist and entrepreneur who fuses AI-driven analytics with strategic foresight, helping organisations turn uncertainty into advantage through his SaaS platform, WhatTheForesight (WTF). As Founder and CEO of WTF (www.whattheforesight.com), he has built an AI-powered sentiment and crowdsourced platform that quantifies organisational “future fitness” through a 25-attribute radar framework, analysing 65,000+ data points to uncover leadership misalignment, market adaptability gaps and resilience weaknesses. Used by organisations including Deloitte USI and the UN, it helps executives anticipate disruption rather than react. Dr. Wing has developed a novel statistical method linking culture to profitability, earning WTF’s selection as one of 7 South African tech companies for a government delegation to Ireland showcasing African innovation to the EU market, and finalist at the SA Futuretrust Awards.
Gian-Marco Melfi
Partner, One Bio
Gian-Marco Melfi
Gian-marco Melfi has a passion for technology, entrepreneurship, and sustainable development. He has played a critical role in shaping OneBio’s mission to drive biotech advancements across the continent. His expertise in venture building and investment strategy has helped position the OneBio as a leading supporter of startups tackling challenges in health, agriculture, and environmental sustainability.
With a background in both business and biomedical sciences, Gian-marco brings a unique perspective to the biotech ecosystem. He holds a BSc Honors in Biochemistry from Stellenbosch University’s Department of Biochemistry (2015). Subsequently he was awarded the prestigious Glenmore Scholarship to attend The University of Edinburgh earning an MSc by Research in Biomedical Science (2016/2017). Prior to joining OneBio, Gian-marco worked with various life sciences startups in the UK including Gyroscope Therapeutics (Acquired by Novartis for $1.5b). Gian-marco also contributed to the establishment of Cambridge University’s Milner Therapeutics Institute.
As a partner at OneBio, Gian-marco is deeply committed to nurturing Africa’s untapped potential in biotechnology. He works closely with entrepreneurs to provide not only capital but also strategic guidance and mentorship, ensuring their ventures thrive in a competitive global landscape. His dedication to fostering collaboration has helped establish OneBio as a cornerstone of Africa’s biotech community.
Gian-marco Melfi’s visionary leadership and dedication to biotech innovation have made him a driving force behind OneBio’s success and a key contributor to Africa’s growing prominence in the global biotech landscape. Gian-marco is confident that the biotech and biomedical sectors will grow across the continent, enabled by unique datasets and propelled by challenges that face the continent, utilising these challenges as opportunities within which to build solutions to globally relevant problems.
Gladwyn Leeuw
Gladwyn Leeuw
Gladwyn is a seasoned investment professional and entrepreneur, with a wealth of experience in management, leadership, and partnership roles across both public and private sectors. He currently holds the position of CEO at E Squared Investments, an Impact Investment Fund based in South Africa. His multifaceted experience encompasses senior leadership roles, lecturing, as well as the founding of a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending fintech platform and an independent business consultancy.
His career journey began at Anglo American’s enterprise and supplier development arm, Zimele. He later joined the Senior Executive team at CCI South Africa. Before his current role at E Squared, he served as a General Partner at Kingson Capital, a South African-based Venture Capital investment Firm, leading the Post-investment Management team. On the academic front, Gladwyn holds degrees from Wits Business School (WBS) and the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits).
Ian Lessem
Managing Partner, HAVAÍC
Ian Lessem
Ian Lessem, Managing Partner, HAVAIC - Growing up in a family of entrepreneurs, Ian’s passion for building businesses runs in his genes. Coupled with over two decades of pan-African fund management and investment banking experience, Ian and his team at HAVAIC have been investing in and partnering with African-born technology businesses and successfully scaling them locally, regionally and internationally for over 10 years, delivering leading returns and creating meaningful impact.
Janice Johnston
CEO, Edge Growth Ventures
Janice Johnston
Janice has a deep and diverse investment background, spanning over 25 years with highly regarded financial institutions in South Africa (SA) and the UK. She has significant debt, venture capital and private equity experience across multiple sectors and business stages and is a CFA Charterholder.
Janice spent 10 years with Prudential Capital plc in London as a senior member of its Principal Finance team prior to joining Edge Growth, a leading SA SME impact investor for five years. Thereafter, Janice joined the Identity Partners Group, a majority black women led investment group.
Janice worked in the Presidential Climate Finance Task Team which led the negotiation of South Africa’s Just Energy Transition Investment Plan (JET IP) before re-joining Edge Growth Ventures in July 2023 as Chief Executive.
Jason Goldberg
Co-Founder, Edge Growth
Jason Goldberg
Jason Goldberg is a scale-up veteran, serial entrepreneur, and co-founder of four influential ventures including Edge Growth, the Vumela Fund and Art of Scale. Jason’s career began at Bain & Company doing corporate venturing and strategy consulting, but he’s spent the last 20 years as a scale up founder who helps others scale with capital, know-how and coaching. In his signature bootcamps and in his book The Art of Scale, Jason shares the practical principles, disciplines and tools that empower leaders to tame the whirlwind, execute priorities, and build businesses that grow without burning out.
Since the ChatGPT moment, Jason has focused heavily on the intersection of AI and scaling. He leads SHIFTAI and Founders At Work, a 12-month AI Transformation program and a community (respectively) for scale up CxO’s harnessing AI strategically to leapfrog competition and scale, by making the 4 key AI Shifts: personal, people, strategy, and operating system.
Justice Kganyago
Fund Principal: Funds of Fund, TIA
Justice Kganyago
Justice Kganyago is the Fund Principal: Fund of Funds at Technology Innovation Agency. Justice brings experience from previous roles at IDF Capital where he was Chief Investment Officer, and Business Partners where he was Business Analyst and Portfolio Manager. Justice also served as board member at small enterprise finance agency (sefa), where he was a member of the Credit and Investment Committee, and as an Investment Committee member of The Innovation Hub. Justice has over 19 years of experience working in fund management and SME development.
Karidas Tshintsholo
Ian Lessem
Ian Lessem, Managing Partner, HAVAIC - Growing up in a family of entrepreneurs, Ian’s passion for building businesses runs in his genes. Coupled with over two decades of pan-African fund management and investment banking experience, Ian and his team at HAVAIC have been investing in and partnering with African-born technology businesses and successfully scaling them locally, regionally and internationally for over 10 years, delivering leading returns and creating meaningful impact.
Karl Westvig
Karl Westvig
Karl Westvig is the chairman and founder of a venture capital fund, Como Capital. The fund was established in 2008 and has started and invested in seven businesses, including businesses in the consumer credit, protein trading, and recruitment industry. He is the group CEO of African Finance Bank (AFB), which is building a consumer finance business in Africa, excluding South Africa. Prior to Como Capital, he co-founded the South African consumer finance business The RCS Group, where he served as CEO until December 2008. RCS Group is now the leading provider of independent credit services to retailers in southern Africa. Karl sits on the Boards of RCS Group, The Kuyasa Fund, and AFB Group (Mauritius). Karl graduated from UCT in 1992 with an Honours degree in Business Science (Statistics and Operations Research). He is a Fellow of the eighth class of the Africa Leadership Initiative-South Africa and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Ketso Gordhan
Ketso Gordhan
Ketso is the CEO of the SA SME Fund. He has considerable experience in the private equity and impact investing space, both as an investor and fund manager. Since joining the SA SME Fund in September 2018, Ketso has been responsible for the strategic repositioning of the SA SME Fund, specifically the focus on supporting SMEs through investing in Fund Managers that focus on venture capital, growth capital and impact investing. Prior to joining the SA SME Fund, Ketso held the following positions:
In addition to the expertise above, 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.
Mathew Marsden
Mathew Marsden
Mathew Marsden is a purpose-driven entrepreneur on a mission to see South Africa realise its full potential by equipping innovative founders to solve hard problems, unlock innovation, and create meaningful businesses.
His path into entrepreneurship began in financial services, where he built a successful private wealth business before moving into angel investing. From there, he founded his first SaaS venture and co-created the African fundraising platform dealbase. africa, before turning his attention to a bigger problem: strengthening the ecosystem around South African tech ventures.
That focus led him to found Startup Club ZA, now South Africa's largest network of tech founderss, investors, and operators. What began as a founder community has grown into a national platform spanning events, media, jobs and access to capital. Through it, Mathew is building access to opportunity - enabling the next generation of South African founders to thrive.
A faith-driven family man, Mathew is deeply passionate about unlocking people's potential, is guided by strong convictions and a personal commitment to service and stewardship
Mike Mulcahy
Chief Executive Officer, GreenCape
Mike Mulcahy
GreenCape has focussed on unlocking and unblocking opportunities in the Green economy, its efforts has resulted in approx 70bn of investment and the creation of some 22 000 jobs. GreenCape has been involved in a number of catalytic projects including, the South African Renewable Energy Master Plan, the planning and subsequent licensing of the Atlantis GreenTech Special economic zone, the setup of a GreenOutcomes fund, support founding and secretariat function for the South African Plastics Pact.
Mike is a registered development finance practitioner (CDFA), with a background in Economics and Finance.
Mike serves as the chairperson of the International Cleantech network – a network of world leading Cleantech clusters, collectively representing about 10 000 Cleantech companies worldwide. Mike also serves as a board member of the Center for Scientific and industrial research (CSIR) and as an advisory board member for the Centre for Renewable and Sustainable Energy Studies at Stellenbosch University.
Mitch Adams
CEO & Founder, AIONS Ventures
Mitch Adams
Trained originally as a software engineer, Mitchan "Mitch" Adams spent an initial 9 years in the financial industry working in a stock broking firm before specialising in payments through a lengthy stint at the likes of Transaction Capital. He moved up the ranks from software developer to development manager until he decided to start his own business in 2014, co-founding an online payments company called Ozow, building it over 7 years into an award-winning business which is arguably one of South Africa's most innovative, recognised and trusted brands in the payments space today.
After wearing various hats within Ozow, Mitch exited at the end of 2021 after a $48m series B raise lead by Tencent, leveraging all the experience he had gained as an entrepreneur and director, to assist budding startups and their founders to find the same success. In 2022 he founded a venture building firm called Aions Creative Technology and Aions Ventures, and currently serves as director and CEO, self-funding it. Aions focuses on early-stage funding and business support to black entrepreneurs with the aim of architecting the future of sustainable startups which then creates sustainable jobs. He is also the creator of the public investment platform, Aions Exchange, built on block chain technology, giving access to any South African, fractional ownership in early-stage startups with high growth potential. Aions currently manages ESD funds for corporates such as the likes of Telkom and looks after a portfolio of 15 companies. Aions latest fund is a R100 million seed fund backed by SASME, TIA and eSquared
Nick Allen
Managing Partner, SAVANT
Nick Allen
Nick Allen is an engineer with an MBA and additional education in IP management, Venture Capital, Private Equity, and Corporate Governance. Nick is drawn to helping inventors and innovators turn their ideas and concepts into products and businesses that make people's lives better and/or solve some of the world's problems. He has a passion for building businesses from first principles. He is a founder of Savant and has been commercialising technology businesses for 17 years, taking food tech, medical devices and renewable energy businesses from concept stage to the international market.
Savant is the only dedicated hardware technology incubator in South Africa. Savant brings over twelve years of rigorous hands-on commercialisation experience to early-stage hardware tech projects and ventures.
Savant’s aim is to promote South African companies that have developed physical products that appeal to both local and international markets. Through our work we hope to help science and engineering technology start-ups succeed in the local and global marketplace. To take African developed tech to the world - solving the world’s problems, with African solutions.
Noluvo Nela
Partner & Fund Head, Edge Growth Ventures
Noluvo Nela
Noluvo Nela is an investment professional with over 16 years of experience across impact investing, venture capital and financial services. She currently serves as Investment Partner and Fund Head at Edge Growth, where she leads the Edge Impact Fund (EIF), a catalytic debt fund providing growth capital to African tech-enabled businesses. Noluvo has overseen end-to-end capital deployment from origination and structuring through to portfolio management. She has partnered with corporates, DFIs, institutional and impact investors to fund SME growth at every stage. Her work sits at the intersection of capital and enterprise development, translating venture debt into scale for tech-enabled businesses.
Prior to Edge Growth, Noluvo held senior investment and leadership roles in the SME risk finance space, structuring working capital, asset finance and property finance solutions for growing businesses across multiple sectors. She is a committed advocate for practical pathways between founders and capital ecosystems.
Paula Mokwena
CEO, Fireball Capital
Paula Mokwena
Paula Mokwena brings deep expertise across development finance, private equity, and venture capital. At the Industrial Development Corporation, she was instrumental in establishing the Technology Venture Capital Fund, a pioneering vehicle that provided capital to commercialise many South African innovations. She then spent more than six years in private equity before transitioning to venture capital as a founding member of Fireball Capital, where she now serves as CEO. Passionate about harnessing bold innovation to spur economic growth, she is dedicated to backing ventures that create great commercial return and lasting impact.
Safeera Mayet
Safeera Mayet
Safeera is an admitted attorney and brings over two decades of providing services encompassing corporate and commercial law, financial structuring, international law, risk management, corporate finance, competition law, and company secretarial guidance. She previously held senior management roles in Tiso Group, Kagiso Tiso Holdings, Tiso Blackstar Group, Idwala Industrial Holdings and Tiso Investment Holdings. She has a track record of developing and steering legal consulting services to a diverse customer population, delivering legal and commercial guidance to manage transactions across Africa and Europe.She has facilitated numerous M&A initiatives, redesigning internal debt and tax structures, establishing investment companies for offshore holdings, as well as negotiating and concluding new investments, disposals, and funding agreements. She also serves as a trustee of the Tiso Foundation Charitable Trust to manage and promote programmes that support the academic and leadership development of young South Africans from underprivileged backgrounds.
She holds a BCom and LLB degree from the University of the Witwatersrand and an MBA from the Gordon Institute of Business Science.
Shelley Lotz
SA Startup Act & SiMODiSA
Shelley Lotz
Shelley Lotz is a Chartered Accountant with extensive experience in private equity, financial services and financial sector policy. She is a Partner at Horizon Equity Partners; a private equity fund manager focused on providing patient capital to South African SMEs.
Previously, Shelley was Head of Policy and Regulatory Affairs at SAVCA, where she led the industry's engagement with National Treasury, SARS, SARB and the FSCA.
Shelley continues to work on policy and regulatory reform through SiMODiSA and the SA Startup Act Movement, with a particular focus on improving the regulatory environment for high growth startups in South Africa.
Stephan Lamprecht
Stephan Lamprecht
Stephan Lamprecht is recognised within South Africa’s private capital ecosystem for his work on the annual SAVCA VC Survey and his contribution to shaping the SA Startup Act. An industrial engineer and entrepreneur by training, he combines analytical rigour with a practical, entrepreneurial approach to complex business and investment challenges. Stephan is a strategy facilitator and advisor who works with founders, executives and leadership teams to create clarity, alignment and momentum. His experience spans early-stage finance, high-growth businesses, corporates and development institutions, including Nike, FirstRand, Lesaka Technologies and Vodafone.
Vedantha Singh
Zach George
Vedantha Singh works at the intersection of science, entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem development. As Enterprise Development Manager at UVU Bio, part of UVU Africa, she develops programmes and strategic partnerships that help translate scientific capability and locally relevant knowledge into commercially viable enterprises.
Her work connects entrepreneurs, research institutions, industry, government and funders to address the practical barriers between innovation and market entry—from technical validation and specialist infrastructure to business capability, finance and market access. Her portfolio spans biotechnology incubation, indigenous knowledge commercialisation and agro-processing value chains, with a focus on building inclusive pathways for enterprise growth and participation in the bioeconomy.
Bringing a background in medical virology, public health and policy, Vedantha offers a cross-disciplinary perspective on the conditions that enable innovation ecosystems to thrive. She holds a Master’s in Medical Virology from the University of Cape Town and is pursuing a PhD in Business Administration at UCT’s Graduate School of Business, researching how organisations operationalise responsible artificial intelligence in healthcare.
Zach George
Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Launch Africa Ventures
Zach George
Zach is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Launch Africa Ventures - Africa's most prominent and active early-stage VC Fund with a portfolio of 180+ tech ventures across 25+ countries, including 3 unicorns. He is also the Co-Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Startupbootcamp AfriTech – one of the leading multi-corporate backed venture accelerators program in Africa.
Zach is a prominent investor in 50+ leading tech startups in Africa including Flutterwave, Moove, Kredete, Andela, KudaBank, Yoco and several others. He was featured on the cover of Fast Company (May 2018), Destiny Man (Nov 2019), Forbes (Aug 2023), and on several occasions on CNBC Africa. In 2020, he was recognized as one of the Top 4 Most Influential Persons in Technology in Africa by Les Echos (the French equivalent of the Financial Times).
Zach was previously the head of Africa Investments for U-Start – the largest network of private Multi-Family offices in Europe. Prior to moving to South Africa, he was an investment banker on Wall Street covering mergers & acquisitions, corporate finance strategy and risk management at Lehman Brothers and Barclays Capital, New York.
Zach has a Master’s degree in Finance & Management from Stanford University and a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology. He is a member of MENSA International - the Global High IQ Society.
