Moderators

Adam Bulkin

Adam joined SMMI in 2019 where he serves as Head of Manager Research and the Global Management Portfolio Group (“MPG”). Adam leads the manager research team in conducting the in-depth qualitative and quantitative research which informs the portfolio construction process.

As Head of Manager Research, Adam ensures that analysis and insight into managers is of sufficient quality and depth as to be appropriate for the investment process. His responsibilities include driving the research agenda, carrying out due diligences at a manager level himself and ensuring the smooth functioning of the research team.

In his role as Head of the Global MPG, Adam leads the team responsible for the construction and ongoing management of SMMI’s global portfolios, which includes the generation of strategic asset class allocations, the tactical deviations away from such strategic allocations in line with SMMI’s tactical asset allocation views, and the selection of fund managers within the relevant asset classes in order to implement these global strategies.

Before joining SMMI, Adam co-lead the development and implementation of the private markets programme at Alexander Forbes, including research of private market managers and strategies. Prior to that, he was Head of Global Products at Alexander Forbes.

Adam has also practiced as an independent financial adviser. Prior to that, he established the South African office of Stenham, a global fund manager headquartered in London which manages funds of hedge funds and direct property funds.

Adam is a CAIA charter holder and a qualified and admitted attorney, having practiced as such in Johannesburg, after completing his BA (Hons) LLB at Rhodes University.

Brendan de Jongh

Brendan began his career in financial services in the beginning of 2008, initially as a financial adviser. After working in the advice industry for five years, Brendan moved into asset management in 2013 where he has remained. Brendan is the Head of Research at PortfolioMetrix Asset Management SA, a position he has held since 2015.

Brendan holds numerous professional designations and is a CFA Charterholder, CAIA Charterholder and CFP Professional.

Eugene Braak

Eugene has 15-plus years experience in the retail investment-management arena with an excellent knowledge of the needs of financial advisors. After serving little over 8 years as business development manager for Momentum Wealth he joined Momentum Investment Consulting where he became head of sales and distribution. He joined newly formed Boutique Investment Partners in January 2014 as head of distribution and are instrumental in operations and implementation of bespoke solutions.

Florbela Yates

Florbela (Flof) Yates began her career in November 1993 as a consultant with Alexander Forbes in the health care division. She spent six years there before transferring to Investment Solutions as a senior marketing executive. There, she focused on new business in the institutional space. Florbela was instrumental in building relationships with consultants outside of Alexander Forbes and growing assets in that external market. After 13 years with the group, she joined RMB International as their Head of Institutional Business in SA. Her responsibilities included participating in the quarterly asset allocation and manager review meetings in London, reporting back to local clients whose offshore assets they managed and growing the offshore assets.

She then joined STANLIB Multi-Manager where she was involved in growing institutional assets, product development and institutional reporting. It was at STANLIB that she branched into the retail investment space as an investment marketing specialist. Here, she was involved in distributing not only the STANLIB Multi-Manager offering but also growing the Stonehouse model and their building blocks into the partner space. It was here where her first experience into the DFM market was gained.

She then spent three years with Hollard Investments in their DFM team for a period of three years. Here, she was involved in concluding partnership deals with identified independent financial advisers (IFAs) and building bespoke model portfolios for retail clients.
Florbela joined Momentum Investment Consulting (MIC), now called Equilibrium in January 2017 as Head of MIC and is responsible for Momentum Retail’s advisory business. She has a BCom (Economics, Business Finance, Marketing and Tax) degree and is a certified financial planner (CFP).

Leigh Kohler

Leigh understands that to successfully unlock to the future of investing, we need new ways of thinking, listening, and communicating. As INN8 Invest’s Head of DFM, Leigh transforms the complexities of investing into easy-to-understand insights – if his grandparents understand, then he has achieved his goal of bringing the investment world to everyone.

Leigh started in the industry in 2003 and brings extensive discretionary fund management experience to the team, having held a variety of senior roles, from head of investment administration, head of asset manager research and head of investment and business solutions.

Nadine van Taak

B Com (Hons), CA (SA)

Nadine has over 19 years’ experience in the asset management industry and started her career in financial services with Old Mutual in 2002 as the Investment Specialist for Western Cape and later Gauteng. In 2005 she joined Investec in Pretoria as the Regional Manager for the Lisp. From 2008 to 2011 she was part of the Retail Fund Manager team of Investec Asset Management in Cape Town where she did fund analysis and quantitative researched. Nadine joined Trivium Capital in June 2011 as Portfolio Manager and Investment Analyst and moved to Analytics Consulting in October 2014. Nadine has completed level two of the CFA qualification.

Pierre de Klerk

CFA, B.Com Hons (Act. Sci)

Pierre holds a B. Com (Honours) degree in Actuarial Science and is a CFA Charter holder. He started his career at Old Mutual gaining experience in actuarial product development and actuarial marketing. He joined Momentum in 1997 as the head of investment products for Momentum’s Linked Investment Service Provider. In the early 2000’s Pierre transitioned to a pure investment management career, working in turn working for Momentum Multi Managers and Advantage Asset Managers while gaining 10 years of multi management investment experience. In 2007 he was a founding member of Momentum Investment Consulting (MIC), a unit responsible for all retail multi-manager activities in the Momentum Group. As the head of investments for MIC in South Africa he was responsible for managing an investment team and overseeing investments of R 4 billion. Following the merger between Metropolitan Multi Managers and MIC as part of the MMI merger transaction, Pierre became an executive director of MIC, having general management responsibility for the combined business. By 2013, Momentum Investment Consulting had grown its asset base from R9bn in 2011, to just over R22bn, making it one of the largest retail multi-manager offerings in South Africa. Pierre was the lead portfolio manager on a range of top performing portfolios during his employment at MIC. At the end of 2013, Pierre left the Momentum Group, to co-establish a new investment consulting and investment management firm – Boutique Investment Partners. Pierre is the managing director of Boutique Investment Partners and a senior portfolio manager.

Tavonga Chivizhe

B.Bus.Sci Hons (Act. Sci), Executive leadership

On completing his actuarial studies at the University of Cape Town in 2005, Tavonga Chivizhe joined the Metropolitan Collective Investments CEO – Robert Walton, with the primary goal being to establish a retail multi-manager offering for the Metropolitan Group. This initiative, which begun early 2006, started off with seed capital of just under R 5 million, and by the time of the merger between Metropolitan and Momentum in 2010, the Metropolitan Multi-Manager division was gaining meaningful traction with assets under management of just over R6bn. This division boasted a successful range of house view funds, one of which, the MET Odyssey Conservative Fund of FundsF, in 2010, was awarded the Raging Bull Award, for the best risk adjusted performance over a 5 year period. During this 5 year period of building the Metropolitan Multi-Manager business, Tavonga continued to pursue his professional actuarial exams with the Institute of Actuaries in the United Kingdom up to 2011 when he passed his Actuarial Fellowship exam. The merger of 2010, saw Metropolitan Multi-Managers being combined with the retail multi-manager offering of the Momentum group, with the joint entity then branded to Momentum Investment Consulting [MIC]. In 2011, Tavonga assumed ownership of MIC’s Investment Philosophy and Process, and was also the portfolio manager of the MIC’s 6 house view funds. The combined assets under management of Momentum Investment Consulting [MIC] was then just over R9bn. This period saw yet another MIC house view fund, the MET Odyssey Balanced Fund of Funds being awarded the Morning Star Award for being the best risk adjusted performer in its category in 2012. Tavonga was responsible for the management of a notable number of the MET third-party / white label portfolios. By 2013, Momentum Investment Consulting had grown its asset base from R9bn in 2011, to just over R22bn, making it one of the largest retail multi-manager offerings in South Africa. The same year, 2013, saw Momentum go through a re-structuring exercise, which combined three of its multi-manager divisions: Momentum Manager of Managers, Momentum Investment Consulting and Momentum Alternative Investments. The combined unit was branded Momentum Outcomes Based Solutions and had asset of just close on R150bn. Tavonga was appointed Chief Investment Strategist of this unit, where his role was to assume full ownership and accountability for the division’s Investment Strategy. At the end of 2013, Tavonga left the Momentum Group, to co-establish a new retail investment consulting and investment management firm Boutique Investment Partners. In addition to being a founding director, Tavonga is currently the Chief Investment Officer at Boutique Investment Partners.

Victoria Reuvers

Victoria Reuvers is the managing director for the Morningstar South African investment management group. She is responsible for leading the business and leveraging Morningstar’s global investment capabilities to provide best-practice investment management for clients.

Her career at Morningstar began with the formation of the South African Investment Management business in February 2015 where she was a senior portfolio manager. She was responsible for leading the South African investment team and building portfolios to deliver better investment outcomes to Morningstar clients.

Before joining Morningstar, Victoria was the founder and CEO of Trivium Capital (Pty) Ltd, an investment consulting and research firm in Cape Town. As well as driving strategy for the business, Victoria was a senior portfolio manager at Trivium Capital. Her role included investment research, portfolio construction and ongoing portfolio management.

Before founding Trivium, Victoria gained extensive experience in fund analysis and quantitative research experience at Investec Asset Management where she worked in the retail fund management team. Prior to that, she worked for Investec Private Bank as part of their growth and acquisition finance team.

Victoria began her career at Standard Corporate and Merchant Bank and has 20 years’ experience in the financial services industry. She holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Cape Town.