About Us - Directorate

BILL VENTER

Age: 76
Qualifications: CEng; Fellow IEE (UK); D.Phil (Bus. Man.) (UJ); M.Phil (Bus. Man.) (UJ - Cum laude) MBA (Wales); DCom (hc) (UP, UFS and UPE); DSc (Eng) (hc) (Natal); DEng (hc) (Wits)
Year appointed: 1999
Independence: Non-Executive Chairman
Bytes board committee memberships: None
Other directorships/trusteeships:

• Non-Executive Chairman of Bytes
• Executive Chairman of Altron
• Director of Altech and Powertech
• Member of the Altron Nomination Committee and Remuneration Committee
• Former Chairman of the CSIR, and past director of AMIC Limited and Nedcor Bank Limited

Skills, expertise and experience: Some 42 years devoted to entrepreneurial endeavours and initiatives in the electronics, telecommunications and power electrical industries, both in South Africa and offshore, firstly as design engineer then marketing manager at STC (SA) and thereafter Chief Executive and latterly as Chairman of the Altron group. Dr Venter has played an important role in developing the South African electronics and electrical industry into the key component of the national economy that it is today. He is a Trustee of The Nelson Mandela Children's Fund and a member of the Finance Committee.

PETER RISKOWITZ

Age: 54
Qualifications: BComm; BAcc; CA(SA)
Title: Group Financial Director
Year appointed: 1998
Independence: Executive Director
Bytes board committee memberships: Member of the Executive Committee
Other directorships/trusteeships: Executive Director of Bytes Technology Group South Africa (Pty) Ltd and various other companies in the Bytes group
Skills, expertise and experience: 21 years commercial experience encompassing financial management, corporate finance and executive management.

ROB ABRAHAM

Age: 58
Qualifications: Wits Management Advancement Diploma
Title: CEO Bytes Technology Group
Year appointed: 2001
Independence: Executive Director
Bytes board committee memberships: Member of the Executive Committee
Other directorships/trusteeships: Mr Abraham is a director of various companies in the Bytes group
Skills, expertise and experience: 30 years in general management positions in the ICT sector.

DOUGLAS RAMAPHOSA

Age: 54
Qualifications: MA Social Sciences (Rostov - USSR); IMD (Lausanne) (Switzerland)
Year appointed: 2006
Independence: Executive Director
Bytes board committee memberships: None
Other directorships/trusteeships:

• Executive Director of Bytes Technology Group South Africa (Pty) Ltd
• Divisional Managing Director of Bytes Healthcare Solutions
• Executive Director of Medi-Switch (Pty) Ltd
• Executive Director of Med-e-Mass

Skills, expertise and experience: Former Executive Director for Public Affairs at Anglo American, responsible for media, investor and government relations, transformation, corporate social responsibility and broad based black economic empowerment. Prior to joining Anglo American in 2005, he was Group Executive at ABSA Bank Ltd, responsible for communications and public affairs (1995 - 2004).

NEIL MURPHY

Age: 45
Qualifications: Diploma in Marketing and Management, Kingston Polytechnic
Title: Managing Director of Bytes Technology Group (UK)
Year appointed: 2007
Independence: Executive Director
Bytes board committee memberships: Member of the Executive Committee
Other directorships/trusteeships: Mr Murphy is a director of various companies in the Bytes group
Skills, expertise and experience: 20 years experience in IT sales and general management in IT companies, including ten years service at Bytes and 7 years service in Sales Management at ICL/Fujitsu Services.

ROBERT VENTER

Age: 51
Qualifications: BSc (Econ) (UCLA); MBA (UCLA) (Dean's List)
Year appointed: 2001
Independence: Non-Executive Director
Bytes board committee memberships: Member of the Remuneration and Nomination Committee. Member of the Financial Review and Risk Committee
Other directorships/trusteeships:

• Chief Executive of Altron
• Director of Altech, Bytes, Powertech, Zetex plc (formerly Telemetrix plc) and various other group  companies
• Chairman of Aberdare Cables
• Chairman of the Altron Executive Committee
• Member of the Altron Risk Management Committee

Skills, expertise and experience: Four years' merchant banking experience in the United States, the latter part as Vice-President, Bear Stearns and Co. Inc (1987 - 1990). 17 years' experience in senior management positions in the Altron group (1990 - current), including Chief Executive Officer Aberdare Cables (1993 - 1996), Chief Executive Officer of Powertech (1994 - 2001) before joining Altron as Chief Executive (2001 - current).

ALEX SMITH

Age: 42
Race: White
Qualifications: BA (Hons) (Birmingham); ACMA
Date of birth: 12 th January 1969

Alex Smith has 14 years of experience in the accounting profession with PricewaterhouseCoopers, both in the UK and South Africa. Initially involved in auditing, later spending eight years in the transaction services/corporate finance fields. Five years of financial management experience with the Altron group. Alex is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland.

• Chief financial officer and financial director of Altron
• Non-executive director of Altech, Bytes, Powertech and various other group companies
• Member of the Altron executive committee and risk management committee

SEARA MACHELI-MKHABELA

Age: 39
Gender: Female
Race: Black

Seara is a group executive at Altron, a company listed on th JSE. She is part of the Altron group executive committee.

She is an independent non-executive of Outotec, an innovation technology company based in Finland. She also serves on the following Altron boards, Power Technologies, Bytes Technologies, Powertech SA and Aberdare Cables.

She is an admitted attorney and hold a Masters in Business Administration from GIBS. She trained in South Africa, Germany, Geneva and Sweden in the area of intellectual property law and practiced in South Africa.

She has been an executive and non-executive director for more than 10 years in multi-national and South African companies, to name a few, Merck Sharpe & Dohme, the French Chamber of Commerce and the International Cultural Forum.

She also serves on the Manufacturing Circle, an association of manufacturing chief executives whose focus is South Africa's export competitiveness and the stability of the Rand.

Gender: Female
Race: Black
Qualification: CA (SA)
Date of Birth: 23rd January 1976

Fundiswa Roji is an Executive Director of Kagiso Ventures (Pty) Limited and has been involved with private equity and fund management since 2001.

Born in Duncan Village near East London, Fundiswa matriculated from Philemon Ngcelwane Secondary School in 1992 in Mdantsane, Eastern Cape. She obtained a BCom degree from the University of the Western Cape in 1995 and thereafter she completed her Hons BCompt degree in 1997 through UNISA. She qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 2000 after serving her articles with Ernst & Young. She subsequently joined Old Mutual Employee Benefits and Services as a Fund Manager, where she spent just under two years.

She joined the Kagiso Group in 2001. She was a member of the Commission on Gender Equality's Audit Committee between 2001 and 2005, serving as the chairperson between 2004 and 2005.

Fundiswa is a director of several investee companies in the Kagiso Group.

She sits on the board of Focus on Youth, an NGO focusing on youth development. She is a member of the African Women Chartered Accountants (AWCA), an organisation which encourages and supports the advancement of black women in the accountancy profession.

Afzal is the Managing Director of Kagiso Ventures (Pty) Limited and has over nineteen years' experience in the fields of corporate finance, private equity and financial services.

Afzal obtained a Bachelor of Commerce (B.Comm) degree in 1990 and a Bachelor of Accountancy (B.Acct) degree in 1991 from the University of the Witwatersrand and qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1994 after having served his articles with Deloitte & Touche.

He has developed extensive experience in the fields of auditing and accounting, tax planning, corporate finance and private equity.

Afzal was previously a director of Fusion Capital Corporate Finance, a division of Fusion Capital, a company listed on the JSE Securities Exchange. He was involved in a diverse range of corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions activities, particularly in the field of Black Economic Empowerment.

He joined the Kagiso Group in 2001, and is a director of a number of the investee companies in the Kagiso portfolio. He has helped build Kagiso Ventures into one of the largest and most successful black-owned private equity investment businesses in South Africa. He has been involved in shifting the Kagiso group's strategic focus from being an opportunistic investor to becoming a strategic long-term industrial player.

Some of his directorships include Kagiso Media, Mix Telematics, Bytes Technology Group SA, Waco Africa, Actom Investment Holdings, Kagiso Trust Investments and Sea Harvest.

Title: Non Executive Director
Gender: Male
Race: Indian
Qualification: CA (SA)
Date of Birth: 20th September 1964

Sanjay Bhikha is an Executive Director of Kagiso Ventures Limited and has been involved with private equity and fund management for the past nine years. Prior to this, he was employed for seven years at the Industrial Development Corporation.

Sanjay obtained a BCom. degree from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1985 and thereafter he completed his Hons. BCompt. degree in 1998 through UNISA. He qualified as a Chartered accountant in 1989 after serving her articles with KPMG.

Sanjay is a director or chairperson of several investee companies in the Kagiso Ventures portfolio.