I joined Thawte in the late 1990’s and after selling to Verisign, I left with the founder, Mark Shuttleworth and a core team to help initiate diverse projects in the now HBD group. I supported in the set up of the Venture Capital arm, establishing it as one of the few VC companies in South Africa focused on funding early-stage businesses.

In 2006 I took on the role of CEO and launched HBD Fund2, a strategic shift from start-up to early-stage companies focus. Together with my team, we secured and helped grow HBD’s investments in amongst other Fundamo, CSense and OrderTalk, which became high profile exits to Fortune 500 entities.

Over the years I have gained experience in launching concepts such as the Big Idea Conferences aiming at stimulating entrepreneurship; a trustee of the Shuttleworth Foundation; a director of the HBD group; a director Bsquare Communications that drove the Hip2b2 brand; a non-executive director; involved in exits of various companies from profitable sales to third parties, to management buyouts and placing companies in Business Rescue to liquidation; and establishing a start-up in Portugal and Sao Tome & Principe.

My current focus areas include: heading up HBD in South Africa; non-executive directorships; coaching; mentoring; start-up support; business growth and sense checking.