Moderators

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.

Elmien Wagenaar

Elmien is the founder of THINK.CAPITAL, a boutique asset manager that provides clients with uniquely constructed hedge fund solutions. The THINK strategy is supported by the Elmien’s track record of over 21 years in analysing and combining hedge funds and has demonstrated its worth through strong risk management and award-winning returns. She was previously head of alternative asset research at Citadel Asset Management, where she helped build Citadel’s hedge fund competencies over 10 years. She has a Masters Degree in Applied Mathematics from Stellenbosch University and attained her CFA in 2005.

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).

Francis Marais, CFA®

As head of product development, Francis Marais is responsible for developing new and managing existing, proprietary investment products; ensuring that we are offering high-calibre, competitive products that serve our client’s financial needs. In this role, Francis oversees and implements product development policies, objectives, and initiatives. He leads research for new products, product enhancements, and product redesign.

Before joining Morningstar in November 2022, Francis spent seven years at Glacier, where he started his career as a research and investment analyst. He was later promoted to senior research and investment analyst and finally moved on to become Head of Research at Glacier. This role primarily entailed both local and international fund and investment research, portfolio construction and servicing a wide variety of specialist intermediaries. Francis started his career at Sanlam Employee Benefits, before spending four years as the operations and research manager at a Category II Discretionary FSP.

He is a CFA® charterholder and holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) degree in Financial Analysis from the University of Stellenbosch. Francis also completed his MBA through the University of Stellenbosch Business School (USB) in 2020.

Ian Jones

Ian joined Fundhouse in 2013 and is a Director based in South Africa. Ian was previously the Chief Operating Officer of a boutique asset manager in South Africa. He also has international experience, having spent five years in Australia and 2 years in the United Kingdom. He started in the investment industry in 2001 and is a qualified actuary.

Leigh Kohler

Industry experience – 20 years

Leigh joined INN8 Invest, then STANLIB Multi-Manager, in 2020 as Head of DFM. He started in the industry in 2003 at Glacier, where he held a number of senior roles including Head: Investment Administration; Head: Asset Manager Research; Head: Investment Solutions – a portfolio that included Glacier Research, Glacier Manco; Glacier Invest (DFM)). He then joined Sanlam Multi-Manager in 2019 as Head: Business Solutions, continuing his role within the DFM, but included a broader mandate including product; distribution; proposition; and institutional business.

Nadine van Taak

Nadine has over 20 years’ experience in the asset management industry and started her career in financial services with Old Mutual in 2002. In 2005 she joined Investec in Pretoria as a regional manager for the LISP. She joined the Retail Fund Manager team in Cape Town in 2008 where she did fund analyses and quantitative research. Nadine was part of Trivium Capital from 2011 to 2014 after which she joined Analytics Consulting. She is heading up the team of analysts supporting investment consultants providing consulting to our partners. This includes quantitative and qualitative research on managers, used within portfolios or those that will potentially be included in strategies She 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.

Rafiq Taylor

Rafiq heads up the retail consulting function within the investment team. This follows his roles at Sanlam Investments’ multi manager business, Sanlam Multi Manager International, which he joined in 2006. He was initially appointed as an Investment Analyst and was responsible for carrying out manager research analysis. He was later promoted to Portfolio Manager, managing investment portfolios for institutional and retail investors. In 2012, Rafiq helped establish the retail investment consulting offering that he now heads up.

He started his career in the financial services industry in 2004 as a Client Service Consultant at Glacier Financial Solutions (previously Innofin), where he serviced financial advisers.

Roeloff Horne

Roeloff has over 20 years’ experience in managing portfolios. He founded Eagle Asset Management and Bond Street Financial Services which became part of the MitonOptimal Group in 2010 and 2014 respectively. Roeloff is responsible for the management of the suite of local and offshore multi-asset funds and portfolios.

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.

Trevor Garvin

Trevor takes overall responsibility for Nedgroup Investments’ Multi-Manager division that oversee approximately R40 billion in AUM. This business covers the on-going research and management of a range of South African and global multi-managed funds. In addition, the division offers independent investment consulting and specific fund research for approved fund lists. Prior to his current role, he served as a director of Edge Asset Management, following the merger of Edge and TMA Investment Products Services. Further experience includes consultancy work at Barra International, and lecturing in Economics and Finance at the University of Cape Town. Aside from his overall managerial role, Trevor is actively involved in the fund management of both the domestic and global funds, and sits on both Nedgroup Investments International Strategy Committee and International Investment Committee.

Investment experience and qualifications: 26 years industry experience. B.Com. (Honours) in Economics, M.Com in Finance, MBA, Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA).