Debbie’s insurance career spans over 34 years in several companies and brokerages.

Debbie is a student of LEAN and quotes Respect for people as the single most important value in leadership. She believes that an empowered team, gives her the confidence to develop strategic objectives which produce not only profitable results, but vision for the future of the company.  

Bruce is currently a Technical Team Lead at JMR Software, a software company specializing in Insurance, Data Migration and Technology solutions. Involved in the design, development and implementation of JMR’s in house software solutions and products, delivering for companies locally and abroad. Bruce has over 20 years of experience in the software industry, more than 15 of those focussed in the life insurance industry from the FNA and uptake processes all the way through to claims processing.

Christine Rodrigues is a partner in our Johannesburg office Banking and Finance department and a member of the Banking & Financial Services Regulatory practice. 

Christine is an insurance and re-insurance expert (life and non-life) and has worked with major insurers and brokers (both locally and internationally based) as well as industry associations. Christine spent time working for one of South Africa’s leading privately owned insurance groups where she implemented the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act, 2002 compliance programme. She worked both in the insurance group’s South African and Mozambican insurance licensed entities.  

Christine deals with all aspects relating to insurance legal and compliance issues. Her experience includes liaising with the various ombuds, advising and assisting with various applications with the insurance regulators as well as providing insurance regulatory opinions to the insurance industry both in litigious and non-litigious matters.  

Christine has a good relationship with the insurance regulators and her practical knowledge and understanding of the insurance industry ensures she provides strategic and commercially orientated advice.  

Christine has B.Com and B.Com (Hons) degrees from the University of the Witwatersrand and an LLB from the University of South Africa (UNISA). Her B.Com (Hons) was awarded first class with majors in Insurance and Risk Management.  

An insurance entrepreneur who has a proven track record in building sustainable specialist insurance businesses. Christelle founded Thatch Risk Acceptances in 1998, reinvented MUA as a fully-fledged personal lines underwriter from a previously specialist motor underwriter in 2005 and founded Elite Risk Acceptances in 2019.  In 2022, Christelle will launch Ami Sure (Pty) Ltd, personal lines underwriting managers for Constantia Insurance. Ami is intent on “turning insurance on its head in South Africa”. It’s a 21st century company with a 21st century vision: to remain at the cutting edge of technology while remaining committed and connected to a people-first mindset. Long gone are the reams and reams of forms, wordy and unintelligible policy documents, brusque and impersonal call centre operators, and rigmarole around claims. Ami sees itself as a friend who is willing to go to the ends of the earth to ensure seamless dealings across the board.

Tyrone is a founder and chief executive officer of Midbrook Lane Proprietary Limited, a private investment company. His career began at Sasfin Securities as a research analyst before he left to start Midbrook. Tyrone obtained a Bachelor of Commerce Degree from the University of Johannesburg and is a senior advisor to Protea Asset Management LLC, an investment advisor based in the United States. He has more than 10 years of investment and investment company experience.

Bennie Gouws is the Director of Advisor Experience at Work That Matters, which most people know as Asset-Map.  He has been in the financial services industry for more than 20 years, working in various roles, both in smaller entrepreneurial businesses and large corporations. He has served in various industry committees and is passionate about achieving better outcomes for clients. He believes that the most direct way to improve client outcomes is to improve the conversation between clients and brokers. 

Bart Patrick joined Genasys as Chief Revenue Officer and member of the executive team in 2022 where he is responsible for leading the go-to-market strategy for the business in key target markets including the UK, Europe, Africa and Latin America. Bart has dedicated his 30-year career to insurance and technology, having been responsible for insurance business strategy, marketing, sales and delivery for many of the leading companies in the industry.

Marius was appointed as Managing Director of Succession Financial Planning starting 1 January 2017.  

 His career in the financial services industry started in 2000 in the Liberty Group where he was responsible for the management of the corporates and Multi-tied environments within the Cape province. He served in this role until his appointment in Sanlam in 2011 where he assumed the position as the Regional Manager for both Port Elizabeth and East London regions.  

Prior to holding positions in the financial services industry, Marius served as a staff officer in the South African National Défense Force. Whilst serving, he attended the Military Academy where he completed a B.Mil degree in Economics and Management as well as an Honours degree in Management. He continued his studies to complete a Master’s degree in Policy Analysis in 1998 through the University of Stellenbosch Business School. After moving into the Corporate environment, he completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Financial Planning through the University of the Free State. He went on to complete a Senior Leadership Programme with the Gordon Institute of  Business Science in 2007 as well as a Senior Management Development Programme through the University of Stellenbosch Business School in 2015. He also completed an Advanced certificate in Design Thinking through the University of Cape Town Business School. 

Martin is an Electronic Engineer that realised that the purpose of technology is to support business.  After completing a Master’s Degree in Commerce, Martin specialised in IT Project Management with the focus of executing technology projects to achieve strategic business objectives. 

Martin’s role in Ellipsys is to assist clients with identifying the appropriate technology and process solutions to meet their business objectives and to ensure successful implementation of the Evolve Insure Platform to support client technology transformation. 

Managing Director at Stasure, Loving father, Home Chef, Artisan Baker, Extroverted optimistic entrepreneur, Lover of life.

Sizwe Cakwebe is a Cyber Business Manager with financial lines and has oversight of our Cyber product. Sizwe has experience in the cybersecurity arena, having moved to SHA from his position as senior consultant at Deloitte where he was an integral part of the Risk Advisory – Cyber and Technology Risk team. In this role, he was responsible for executing IT audits, cyber specific projects, governance and resilience related projects across public and private sector clients. Sizwe holds a post graduate degree in Internal audit with certifications from Amazon Webs Services (cloud practitioner), Certificate of the Business Continuity Institute (CBCI) from the Business Continuity Institute (BCI) and ISO27001 (Cyber Security .

Karin Muller was appointed Executive Head of Sanlam Individual Life on 1 August 2016. Sanlam Individual Life offers Long-term Insurance solutions to clients in South Africa. 

Karin is an actuary and CFA Charterholder. Before her appointment as Executive Head of Sanlam Individual Life, she was Head of Growth Market Solutions where she was responsible for developing the financial value proposition for Sanlam’s middle market clients. She was also responsible for leading the Marketing, Communication and Research departments. 

Karin has held other positions in Sanlam, amongst which Valuations Consultant and Manager: Research and Development for Sanlam Employee Benefits; Actuarial Advisor; Specialist Product Designer and Business Owner for the SanlamConnect project, a new financial advice model. As Specialist Product Designer she developed bespoke solutions and investment products for individual clients, corporate clients, and retirement funds. 

Karin serves as a Board member on various entities in the Sanlam Group. She is currently a Board member of MiWay Life, Sanlam Indie and Sanlam Trust. She was also a Board member of BrightRock Life, BrightRock and BrightRock Holdings. 

Recognised for her professional contribution to the company, she was awarded the SPF Activator Award in 2007 and received the prestigious Sanlam Group Chief Executive Award in 2008.  

She is a fellow of both the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and the Actuarial Society of South Africa and is a member of the CFA Institute and the CFA South Africa. 

Devan is Cardinal’s Group Digital and Operations Officer and has been driving optimisation of the global operating model and digital transformation innovation since joining the company 2 years ago. He has a wealth of strategic and operational knowledge, developed across multiple industries, through his work in consulting, corporate executive, and business entrepreneurial roles held over the past 25 years.

Devan is responsible for driving growth and ensuring strategic alignment within the group while using his exposure to transformational, enterprise, and business process re-engineering projects to advise corporate and private enterprises on their digital transformation journey to becoming ‘digital first’ organisations. He is a big proponent of the role InsurTechs must play in leading transformation of the insurance landscape ”

Listed top 3 in South Africa for the Insurance Apprentice 2016, Alicia has attained over a decade experience working in the various lines of the insurance industry. Her passion is found in strategy and planning with vast experience in the broker distribution channel, marketing, public relations and business compliance. She holds an MMDP acquired from the Gordon’s Institute of Business Science and a PGDIP from Henley Business School. She is currently studying towards her MBA specialising in strategic innovation and systems management.

Alexandre holds more than 17 years of experience in the largest Telecom groups on the continent including MTN and MILLICOM before joining the entrepreneurial adventure for a few years to solve the problem mentioned above. Passionate about Technology and Japanese Kaizen or the discipline of continuous improvement, he claims multiple degrees including a MBA Summa Cum laude, a Master degree in Supply Chain and several certificates, including one in Blockchain from the prestigious American MIT. 

Since 2018, Digitech has regularly been recognized on the pan-African chessboard, particularly with the distinction received from FANAF (Presentation Digitech FANAF 2020) as the best African Insurtech company (FANAF Prize) and more recently in 2021 as the best Insurtech Company by Africa Fintech Forum (Africa Fintech Forum Award). 

Alexandre was also ranked among the top Insurtech CEOs by Technology Innovators in 2020 in US. 

Pieter (Wimpie) Van Der Merwe is a South African architect and entrepreneur with a strong passion for art, design thinking, and digital solutions. He is the founder and director of various businesses which include Global Choices Assets, Global Choices Lifestyle, Digital Path, and Claim Central Africa.

Empathy is integral to everything Wimpie and his team believe in and set out to accomplish, as he states, “empathy is the key to unlocking client insights pro-actively targeting their needs with game-changing products”.

Jason began his career as an IT consultant with Arthur Andersen and then for JP Morgan Investment Bank. He entered the insurance industry in 2009 and has for several years managed the IT companies which are now owned by Concourse Holdings and has responsibility for the architecture and development of the systems marketed by Concourse IT. As such, Jason has been intimately involved in the development of all the systems which are and will be deployed by Concourse IT. 

After qualifying, Rudi spent ten years in the legal profession before entering the IT industry with an e-commerce company in the medical practice management environment. Since then he has worked in various IT businesses ranging from financial services to “the internet of things” with a focus on distribution and operations. His experience traverses financial and general management with a client oriented focus which extends to training. Rudi brings to Concourse IT experience and focus on seamless post sales implementation. 

Peter spent twenty years at the Alexander Forbes Group, occupying various executive roles, including executive director of Alexander Forbes Risk and Insurance Services and Alexander Forbes Management Services. He was also the managing director of Alexander Forbes Cre8, the product research and delivery arm of the company. His areas of expertise include insurance programme design and structuring, as well as insurance product research and development. He is also a qualified risk management practitioner. Peter obtained his ACII and FCII through the Chartered Insurance Institute in the United Kingdom and also qualified as a Chartered Insurance Practitioner. He holds an FIISA and Cert Advanced Risk Management Diploma (Unisa) and is a fellow of the Insurance Institute of South Africa. He is an associate of the Institute of Risk Managers of South Africa, as well as a registered and authorised Key Individual and Representative. Peter is the current vice president of the FIA. 

Like many in South Africa David got into financial planning by accident. While on the path to becoming an accountant he fell into financial services . This began a love affair with financial services and pursuing the respected CFP® designation.  

During his career David fulfilled many roles including telephone sales, personal assistant, administration manager, tied financial adviser, para planner and lecturer, as well as owning his own financial planning practice David is a CFP® professional and Certified Financial Educator Instructor. 

When not focusing of achieving profession status for financial planning, David spends time with his wife and two daughters in the great outdoors. 

I have spent much of my working career assessing current operations and processes, with an aim of simplifying and improving workflows, increasing productivity and driving efficiency.

I saw a gap in the current risk survey and risk management space and designed a solution that would do just that. I have spent the last two years working with risk surveyors, Risk specialists and Insurers to develop a solution that would change the way that risk is viewed and managed.  

Tanya Knowles is the Business Manager of Adhara, a global provider of liquidity management and international payment solutions for decentralised financial networks. Her previous roles have included working as the Country Manager of Binance South Africa, world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume and the Managing Executive of Fractal Solutions at Strate (Pty) Ltd, where she was tasked with leading a team to research, develop and implement disruptive technologies focusing on blockchain / distributed ledgers and cryptoassets.

Tanya is currently the Chairperson of the South African Financial Blockchain Consortium which represents over 60 of the country’s largest financial institutions. She is a faculty member of SingularityU South Africa, an Ambassador for the Global Blockchain Business Council and a member of the South African National Blockchain Alliance. Tanya has been internationally recognised as one of the world’s leading women in blockchain technology. Having presented across four continents, Tanya is a well-renowned speaker and thought leader in her area of expertise.

Tanya has a certification in blockchain technology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and holds a BA, PDM, and MBA all from the University of the Witwatersrand. In her private capacity, she is involved in a number of women’s leadership and mentoring initiatives aimed at professional business women.