MENTORS

After starting his career as an electronic engineer, Almero also obtained pre and postgraduate accountancy qualifications from the University of Cape Town before launching his career in strategy and management consulting with leading international firms Bain & Company and Deloitte in South Africa and the USA. Almero was also a founding member of Decipher Consulting, a South African niche consulting firm, where he was an executive director of the business.He is also the Non-Executive Chairman of Urbanise.com, an ASX listed cloud software business for facilities, asset and strata management.

He started his career as an office cleaner in a cardboard factory, from where he followed a winding path through insurance, IT operations, restaurants, and studying Organisation Development through UNISA. He spent 9 years in China, during which time he completed a Master’s degree in Managing and Leading Innovation and Change (MALIC). He returned to South Africa in July 2017 with his wife, Lily, and their two children in response to a sense that God was calling them to come back and contribute to the building of kingdom-focused businesses focused on eradicating poverty in Africa.

While serving at Every Nation, Ben was responsible for coordinating all start-up and pioneering operations, plus fundraising and financial management of a multimillion-rand budget, co-creating and then executing the vision and strategies of the organisation and involving volunteer leaders and members on the university campus and community projects and forging collaborative relationships. He managed 120 staff.

In 2017, Ben founded Business Game Changers with the goal of helping 1500 businesses by 2030 scale 10X and create 100,000 sustainable jobs.

Ben lives in Stellenbosch and is happily married to Adi, a pharmacist, clinical research associate & consultant. They are the proud parents of three beautiful children. Ben’s family believe they exist to honour God by ultimately obeying Matthew 28:19-20.

Cheryl is also the Founder and Managing Director of REASONATE, an Associate at Womaniko – Transforming Spaces & Author of “The Treasure Within” and “Catapult”.

For 28 years Chris has been married to Wanda, who is a dynamic and creative entrepreneur. They have two daughters, aged 30 and a 27 year-old son. Topping the list of his interests are good food, red wine, and travel.

Christine is extremely passionate about entrepreneurial journeys and hosts a podcast called Behind The Edit, where she facilitates honest and raw conversations between creative entrepreneurs.

Craig worked for 7 years as an investment banker at BoE Bank, now Nedbank. He has over 25 years of relevant experience, 10 years of which being involved in successfully building Imbewu through deal identification, funding, and operational involvement. The practical phase of his chartered accountant qualification was spent with Coopers and Lybrand (Now PWC). 

Craig is currently a director of Multiply Group (Pty) Ltd, Imbewu Capital Partners (Pty) Ltd, International Facilities Services Limited (Mau) and SBS Holdings (Pty) Ltd. Craig also serves on the Investment Committee of Summit Africa Private Equity Social Impact BEE fund. He previously served on the boards of Gadlex (Pty) Ltd, Reebok South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Autovest Limited, Aka Capital (Pty) Ltd, Seattle Solutions (Pty) Ltd, Evolve Internet Incubator (Pty) Ltd, Setcom (Pty) Ltd, Business Connexion Solutions Holdings (Pty) Ltd, Bo’s Hire & Sales, (Pty) Ltd, Custom Capital Finance (Pty) Ltd, Crossfin Holdings (Pty) Ltd and Umhlanga Arch Developments (Pty) Ltd.

Darin thrives on his international relationships and finds himself challenged, rebuked and constantly encouraged by other like-minded people globally who share the same Kingdom principles. He loves to meet up with these people and together share ideas and strategies.

Darin currently resides in Salt Rock, South Africa, with his wonderful wife Paula and their three magnificent children, namely Savannah, Joshua and Kristin.

Bloudruk Group consist of the following entities – which includes two of the largest radio stations – Radio Tygerberg 104FM in Cape Town and GROOTfm 90.5 in Pretoria, a leading TV program on kykNET called Die Groot Ontbyt, a media agency called BDM.Media including BDM.Digital, Downtown Entertainment, 104 Concerts and a news agency called Bulletin, just to name a few.

Hardus is actively involved in the community and founded the Voortrekker Road Corridor Improvement District, the largest CID in South Africa. He is also a trustee of the Shalom Trust – a religious organisation founded and lead by Angus Buchan who is involved in reaching out to communities, sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, building relationships, uplifting people, and giving hope.

Her experience further includes working at blue-chip companies such as Deloitte and Altron, where she specialised in strategic business planning, innovation, corporate affairs and 360 marketing. She has also worked with Non-Profit Organisations in North America, Asia and Africa.

Ipi is a board member and director of PRCA UK Ltd and is listed as such at London Companies House. She also serves as a board member of Nahana Communications Group. She has further served on other boards and as a judge at some of the industry’s largest awards, which span across the African continent. 

On his return to South Africa he was instrumental in the turnaround of Sanlam Health, where he served as CEO from 1999 to 2001, led Glacier by Sanlam and headed the start-up of the financing company Quince Capital. He subsequently acted as the CEO of the then JSE listed pharmaceutical company Cipla Medpro South Africa and, during this time, concluded a R4.5bn transaction with Cipla India that saw the delisting of Cipla Medpro. During his involvement with the Sanlam group he served on the Executive committees of Sanlam Life and Sanlam Investment Management.

Laurie has worked as a manager with Master Sports and as Executive Director of her family’s foundation, Master Works Foundation before founding En Gedi, a non-profit. She currently is a director of Lion’s Crown Global Investments and serves on the advisory council of Life Plus, an education group in China, while also ministering locally.

Malcolm understands the intrinsic components of a social enterprise and the critical role this plays in the ‘third sector’. More especially, through his years engaging with SME’s he has gained invaluable knowledge and wisdom with respect to enterprise development and social entrepreneurship.

His exposure to both for profit and non-profit organisations has allowed him to develop a greater understanding of the differences and similarities that exist between them and to apply this knowledge in these fields. He has a passion for excellence in the non-profit sector with particular focus onto Board Leadership, Corporate Governance, Executive Management as well as measuring the impact of interventions in this sector. Malcolm lectures at Stellenbosch University Business School and presents the governance module for the USB-ED NPO Management programme. He has been a panel member for the review of the project presentations by the Senior Management Development Programme (USB-ED SMDP) students. In addition, he facilitates the one-day co-branded TSI and Institute of Directors in Southern Africa’s (IoDSA) one day programme on NPO Governance. He was a founding member of the World Institute for Governance of Non-Profit Organisations (WIGNPO).

During his many years as a consultant in the field of business development, he has been director of numerous non-profit organisations in South Africa. His experience ranges from owning his own consulting business, to being a director of a leading information supply company, to management consulting on performance improvement programmes with some of the large corporations in South Africa. Over the past twenty-eight years he has developed extensive corporate, executive, governance, general management, project management and leadership skills as well as a participatory approach to dealing with business at all levels, domestically and internationally.

Malcolm holds a Bachelor of Business Administration Degree from Newport University (USA) and has completed postgraduate studies at Harvard Business School in the area of Governing for Non-profit Excellence and Strategic Perspectives in Non-profit Management; both were resident studies at Harvard’s Boston Campus. He completed the Management Advancement Programme at Wits Business School, Johannesburg South Africa. He is a graduate and Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and a Fellow of the Institute of Directors in Southern Africa. Malcolm holds a certificate from the University of Cape Town in Coaching to excellence, plus he holds a post graduate certificate in the psychology of leadership from Cornell University. He qualified as a certified sustainability assurance practitioner through the University of Stellenbosch Graduate School.

His contributions to social entrepreneurship have garnered him prestigious titles such as a WEF Young Global Leader, a Schwab Foundation Social Innovation Fellow, a Dangote Fellow, and an Ashoka Fellow. Most recently, Parker has launched RLabs Capital, which focuses on investing in and managing a portfolio of scalable technology and impact-driven companies founded by underrepresented entrepreneurs.

Michelle is enthusiastic about finding and implementing business opportunities to help the continent grow to its full potential. She is also passionate about the importance of the next generation. Michelle is a devoted Christian, and her family is an essential part of her life. She is married to John and has two married sons with children.

Quali Doc has also developed a platform that enables disadvantaged communities to access home-based primary healthcare and screening via community health care workers. This has considerably eased the burden of seeking healthcare in the most vulnerable communities by removing the need to commute to local clinics.

Through a strategic and impactful partnership with the Gates Foundation, the organisation has launched a product called Doc on T@pp, which allows two-way healthcare communication between medical practitioners and communities via voice notes, texts, pictures, and videos. The consulting arm of the business works with primary healthcare clinics and endeavours to optimise their processes as a precursor to the adoption of technology in the form of digital health records and complementary devices. She has over 19 years of clinical experience and has explored the healthcare industry from public, private, and pharmaceutical perspectives.

In 2013 he founded PICSA – a disruptive financial services startup that is now a member of the AFGRI group of companies. Pieter and his wife Estelle share a heart for building God’s kingdom which is why they founded the Aslan Trust in 2014 to reach vulnerable and orphaned children in Africa.

Rorisang is also an adjunct member of faculty at Duke University CE, delivering a portfolio of corporate education programmes. He is an African Leadership Institute / Oxford University Desmond Tutu Fellow, an Africa Leadership Initiative / Aspen Global Leadership Network (YALI) Fellow and a Bertha Foundation Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Fellow. Amongst Rorisang’s hidden talent are that he is both a retired politician and a retired radio show host.

After reading the book “Halftime” in 1998, Tommy desired to live a life of significance and in the middle of 2009, after a number of years in the academic and business world, Tommy was asked to become the first full-time director of Halftime South Africa. He felt that he could realise his dream to inspire business and professional leaders to embrace their calling to live a life of significance.

Before assuming his role at Family Tree Farms Africa, Willem co-founded Campitor Investments, a venture dedicated to investment holdings within the food, beverage, and agribusiness sectors. In 2015, he spearheaded the launch of the African Agribusiness Knowledge and Innovation Leadership Initiative during his tenure in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This initiative, conducted in collaboration with faculties at MIT and Harvard, propelled research into African agribusiness models, leveraging Willem’s firsthand experiences in investment and operational realms across the continent.

Preceding this, Willem was a PSG Group’s Private Equity team member, pivotal in establishing and listing South Africa’s Zeder Investments in 2006. His leadership tenure as CEO of Agrivision Africa, a Zambian farming enterprise under Zeder’s umbrella, provided invaluable insights into steering large-scale African agribusiness operations towards sustainable growth.