Prof. Adrian Saville

Adrian holds a Professorship in Economics, Finance & Strategy at the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS), where he is the Founding Director of the Centre for African Management and Markets (CAMM). He is the author of the Visa Africa Integration Index (2012-2020) and the Investec-GIBS Savings Index (2015-2020), using data and models to develop strategic insights in emerging markets. He has worked in many markets, including Botswana, Brazil, Chile, Estonia, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Japan, Kenya, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Rwanda, Singapore, the United Kingdom, the United States, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Since 2019, Adrian has also been involved in the development of an impact measurement and monitoring tool for a private equity fund in the ICT sector, and since 2017 Adrian has chaired the investment committee of MeTTa Capital’s venture capital fund.

Over the past twenty-five years, alongside his academic career, Adrian established and grew an investment firm, developing the firm’s models and client markets from launch of the business to sale of the firm to a listed entity in 2017. He remained as CEO of the firm, developing, and managing in-house investment solutions for the group’s banking, employee benefits and insurance divisions. In 2021 he joined multi-family investment office, Genera Capital, to establish a multi-asset investment portfolio and to help the firm grow its market presence and market share.

Adrian holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) (cum laude), MCom (cum laude) and a PhD (Economics) for which he was awarded the Economics Society of South Africa’s Founders Medal. He is a UNESCO laureate, a matriculant of Linacre College (Oxford) and has completed programmes in Capital Markets at New York’s Columbia University; competitive strategy at Harvard Business School in Boston; Machine Learning at Stanford; and Game Theory at the University of British Columbia.

Dr Theresa Onaji-Benson

Dr Theresa Onaji-Benson is a Full-Time Faculty at the Gordon Institute of Business Science. Her project management and research work spans across the Centres for Business Ethics (CfBE) and African Management and Markets (CAMM).

She is passionate about the development of business on the African continent, with interests in the influence of non-market strategies and institutions on business in Africa. Dr Onaji-Benson’s research is at the firm level of analysis and focuses on non-market strategies including ethics, partnerships and how firms and MNEs adapt to and sustainably influence the business environment within which they are located. She is currently working on a number of research projects that interrogate whistle-blowing, gender-based violence and partnerships in Africa and is in partnership with researchers from Nottingham Trent University, Lagos Business School and Georgetown University. She teaches, supervises and is an examiner on the PDBA, PGDip, MBA and MPhil courses. Prior to her research and academic experience, Dr Onaji-Benson has global experience in the financial industry, with client management and sales experience from the Royal Bank of Scotland and the commercial banking sector in Nigeria.

Dr Onaji-Benson is a volunteer mentor with the Young SDG Innovators Programme (YSIP) organised by the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC).

Francois Fouche

Francois started his professional career as an economist at Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates (WEFA) Inc, a USA-based commercial think tank founded by Nobel Prizewinner Dr Lawrence Klein. At Wharton, his responsibilities included macro-economic modelling and econometric analysis of selected Sub-Sahara African countries. He went on to Barclays Capital as a treasury economist where he focused on fixed income and economic research to institutional investors and provided strategic economic and interest rate research input, to the group’s (ALCO) Asset and Liability Committee. He progressed to a boutique bank and derivatives structuring house (Corp Capital Bank) where he was part of the team, which originated South Africa’s 1st passive investment tracking fund (Exchange Traded Fund) today known as SATRIX. Other areas of focus included various applications of derivative structures to tailor niche payoff profiles for institutional investors.

At Global Insight Inc., his responsibilities included diversification of economics research offerings to corporate and government entities, where he participated in several ad hoc economic research projects and model simulations of alternative scenarios for policy changes. He was part of the research team that founded the ReX (Regional Economic Explorer), an integrated sub-national database of economic and social economic statistics. Since 2008’s electricity load shedding crises, he focused on energy economics and tariff-related industry research as well as financial modelling of electricity load limiting projects and underground coal gasification projects. He presented various financial model methodologies and sensitivity characteristics to project stakeholders and was part of a multi-disciplinary team focused on an array of energy-related projects.

He was a financial economics advisor to the Reserve Bank of South Africa (SARB). Focus was directed within the Financial Markets Department and at the modernisation of South Africa's FX reserves management as well as the implementation of international asset management best practice. Subsequently, he advised the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Independent Power Producers (IPP) on the financial funding challenges facing a sustainable IPP Program, with particular focus on renewable energy financing. The NWU is his alma mater where he also served as a global trade advisor and economist. He is a research fellow at Africa’s top-rated business school GIBS’ Centre for African Management and Markets and was recently appointed as executive director to head up Growth Diagnostics.

In addition, Francois serves on the British High Commission's National Steering Committee for the Southern African Customs Union + Mozambique Trade Capacity Building Programme (TCBP), now known as Trade Forward Southern Africa (TFSA), which is aimed at supporting growth in trade and improving gender equality in trade and alleviating poverty across the countries within SACU (South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia) and Mozambique.

Ian McLeod

Ian Macleod studied Business Science at the University of Cape Town before embarking on a career as a sports feature writer. He later studied journalism at Rhodes University on a Reserve Bank scholarship, before a spell writing and editing at Caxton Magazines.

Ian completed the MBA at GIBS in 2017, and returned to the school the following year as a founding member of the GIBS Centre for African Management and Markets (CAMM). Ian also supervises GIBS students conducting their MBA and MPhil research projects. Outside of his work at CAMM, Ian combines the worlds of business and storytelling at his consulting firm, Investment Narrative (https://www.investmentnarrative.com/). When he’s not combining narratives and numbers, Ian can be found training for the Comrades Marathon with his dog Macduff.

Colin Iles

Colin Iles offers a variety of disruptive interventions for senior executives that want to accelerate their company’s growth prospects. His 21st Century Leadership programme shows executives how to innovate at scale, using the techniques applied by some of the most purposeful, curious, and courageous leaders in the world. And his virtual, physical and hybrid networking events (conferences, round tables, interviews, firesides, keynotes etc. etc.), helps his clients build broader, deeper networks. His clients include global brands such as Google, AWS, Nando’s and Standard Bank as well as more niche players such as Norsad Capital, 4 Racing and Sybrin.

Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, Colin worked in the financial sector where he held a variety of senior investment banking roles, in Frankfurt, Singapore and Johannesburg. Colin co-founded UCT's African Institute of Financial Markets Risk Management and was deputy chair for the organization until 2019 when he left the banking industry. Whether presenting, facilitating or consulting, Colin mixes his professional experiences with humor and deep research to ensure his audiences stretch their thinking for a world where the opportunities are truly exponential.

If you want to learn more about Colin, do visit his website (www.coliniles.com) or even better, connect with him on LinkedIn.

Colin earned his B.Sc. Accounting and Law from the University of Southampton. He is also an ICAEW qualified chartered accountant. He co-founded the African Institute of Financial Markets Risk Management in Partnership with the University of Cape Town and was deputy chair for a number of years.

Tessa Maepa

Tessa Maepa is a coordinator in the Center of Africa Management and Markets. She matriculated at Sandown High School in 2015. She did a Business Administration Learnership with GIBS under SETA and Transcend In 2019 and finally became an intern at Gibs in 2021 under the Yes programme.