Ashwin is a true believer in networks and entrepreneurs. With a background in Computer Science and Engineering and previous experience working in the innovation team at Honeywell and building tech startups in India (2 exits), Ashwin joined MEST in 2015 as a Technology Teaching Fellow and has since served as the Incubator Manager for MEST Accra, Director of Portfolio Support and finally climbed up the ladder to become the Managing Director of MEST Africa in 2019. At the end of 2021, Ashwin decided to transition out of his role and became a Portfolio Advisor.

Brian Sango (Your Property Guy) aged 31 – is the Strategic Partnerships & Sales Manager of Property Inspect which is a Proptech software solution we created to help automate the property inspection process using our robust mobile APP which means for any type of inspection the entire process can be done from a single app. The scheduling, geo-pinning location, taking of photos / videos, voice to text converter, creation of work orders etc. Aside from this he is also the Co-Owner of Property Made Easy which is a real estate investment consultancy in South Africa whose priority is to strategically assist investors both locally and foreign based in creating income streams through strategic property purchases.

Appointed as the new CEO for Transcend effective from 1 January 2021. Previously served as CFO of the company for nearly three years, from the date of original appointment on 9 March 2018. Eight years’ experience in the affordable housing market and private equity. Involved in new fund development for IHS and formerly Dealmaker at IHS. Previously a Manager at Deloitte & Touche, former Financial Analyst at Absa Capital and Absa Retail banks and former consultant at Nimble Risk Services.

Laurence has extensive experience in the financial services environment, spanning investment banking, private equity, retail banking and insurance and asset management. He was previously a director of Standard Bank, having headed the Insurance and Asset Management division and, prior to that, being in charge of the Strategic Investments and Alliances division.

Experienced Property and Development professional with a demonstrated history of delivering major Negotiation and developments for clients. Strong strategic capability, professional skilled in Asset Management Asset Management across the Due Diligence and development sectors including residential (including high-rise), commercial properties, industrial property, retail land, hotels and master planning. Significant experience in managing large scale complex multi-use projects. Broad understanding of urbanism and its impacts on people and property.

Grace Legodi is a Venture Partner and Investment Committee Member at an SA VC Fund, Grindstone Ventures, and consults to The World Bank Group, helping them execute on Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Development in Southern Africa. She’s also an angel investor and sits on the investment committee/advisory board of various ventures. Prior to her current roles she was the SA Director Country Manager for Plug and Play in California. She also has work experience in Investment Banking. This experience was gained over 10 years, 5 years of which was spent working at Goldman Sachs based in New York and Johannesburg.

With over 25 years’ experience, James Brice is a James is a leading risk consultant to the Private Equity and Financial Services Industry and is the appointed broker and/or dedicated strategic ESG advisor for over 45 funds, asset managers, hedge funds and/or banks, and is the appointed ESG expert for three international mining consultancies in Africa. James has constantly innovated the ESG, and Impact fields having started the first Environmental Insurance offering, an ESG Unit Trust and the first Impact Placement service in Africa. James has worked in over 32 countries in Africa, Europe, South America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia which gives him unique insight into impact across emerging market contexts.

Raylene is a Professionally Registered Scientific Professional with the South African Council of Natural Sciences. She managed the sustainability portfolio for a large multinational engineering firm across Africa for six years spanning across 12 offices providing support to over 1000 employees. She has over 20 years’ experience as a technical expert in sustainable infrastructure design, with a focus on process optimisation, green building and green road design, with the application of climate change adaption initiatives focused on the protection of bulk infrastructure and the provision of advisory services to integrating business supply chain by applying the principles of the circular economy. Raylene has multi sector experience having advised on deals across the alternative asset classes in over 200 countries.

Peter has broader real estate responsibilities including management of public equity real estate strategies. Peter was instrumental in the launch of the Africa Real Estate Platform as well as the Global Real Estate Securities Fund having been involved in both since inception. He joined Investec in 2008 initially in the property division, and later moved to the asset management division in 2010. He has a broad range of property experience having been the portfolio manager for listed property funds, as well as being involved in property development and property finance. Peter graduated from the University of Cape Town with a Bachelor of Science (Hons) degree in Property Studies along with majors in Accounting and Finance. Peter is a CFA Charterholder.

Roelof Opperman is a Partner and Co-Head of the Europe team at Fifth Wall, where he focuses on technology and innovations within all real estate asset classes. Roelof has led Fifth Wall’s investments in Lyric, Eden, Appear Here, Hippo, Industrious, Loggi, Recharge, Lime, and Aurora Solar. Roelof is Co-Founding Chair of ULI Europe Technology and Real Estate Product Council, a member of the ULI UK Executive Committee, and Chair of GRI Global Venture Capital/PropTech Committee. Previously, Roelof worked at Norwest Venture Partners, Evercore Partners, Goldman Sachs, and Bridgewater Associates. Roelof is originally from Johannesburg, South Africa, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude, from Emory University. He is also a Chartered Financial Analyst.

Dr. Puleng has a passion for creativity, design thinking and innovation. She has twenty years of experience working in the private sector, government and in higher educational institutions. Her academic background entails a BSc in Computer Science and Statistics, an MBA and a PhD in Business Management from the University of Cape Town. Her international peers have recognised Makhoalibe as a global leader in creativity and innovation. In 2013, she received an award recognising her contribution to the international community of innovators and creatives. In 2016, she received an Africa Social Innovation Leadership Award. In 2019 she received an award to be part of the women leaders of the world and became a lead for the cohort. She had now joined the women leaders of the world council. She headed up the center of Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship (ICE) at Henley Business School from 2015 t0 2020. She founded the Alchemy Inspiration, an Edu-tech company that works closely with global organisations that accelerate innovation in various fields. Puleng is a passionate speaker, panelist, author, facilitator, and an innovation and design thinking consultant.

Zachariah (Zach) George is a Managing Partner at Launch Africa Ventures – Africa’s leading Seed Venture Capital Fund solving the significant gap in the pre-Series A investment landscape in Africa. He is also the co-founder and Chief Investment Officer at Startupbootcamp AfriTech – the leading multi-corporate backed venture accelerator program in Africa. Zach is widely recognized as one of Africa’s most prominent Angel investors, with investments in 50+ of the leading tech startups in Africa including Flutterwave, Kudabank, MPost, Peach Payments, RecoMed and several others. He was co-featured on the cover of Fast Company Africa in May 2018, Destiny Man Magazine in November 2019, and in December 2019 was recognized as one of the Top 10 Most Influential People in Technology in Africa. In January 2020, he was listed as one of the Top Four Movers and Shapers of Technology in Africa by the prestigious French business daily – Les Echos. Zach was formerly the head of Africa Investments for U-Start – the largest network of private Multi-Family offices in Europe. Prior to moving to South Africa, he was an investment banker on Wall Street covering M&A, corporate finance strategy and risk management at Lehman Brothers and Barclays Capital. Zach has a Master’s degree in Finance & Management from Stanford University and a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology. Outside of his professional life, Zach is a father to 3 children, and is an acoustic guitarist/vocalist with cover albums ‘Give A Little’ (2010) and ‘Humans with Hearts’ (2018) on iTunes and Spotify. He is an avid lover of theater and the performing arts, likes hiking and a good game of tennis and squash. He enjoys creative writing and is currently busy finishing a work of non-fiction.

Ronald Philip heads strategy across the Middle East, Africa and South Asia for Agility Logistics Parks, a leading developer of warehouse parks and part of the $9Bn Agility conglomerate. In his role, Ronald leads strategic planning, partnerships and growth into new markets, new asset classes and building new capabilities. In Africa, Agility Logistics Parks already has a presence in 5 countries and is expanding further. Prior to Agility, Ronald worked with McKinsey & Company, focused on real estate and infrastructure sectors, serving CxO and Minister-level clients globally. He worked with the World Economic Forum, PwC’s infrastructure practice, GE Consumer Finance and the World Bank earlier in his career. Ronald was educated at Harvard University and the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Kozhikode. Ronald is engaged in the proptech space in his day job at Agility and personally as an angel investor in and advisor to proptech startups in Africa.

Dolapo Omidire is the Founder and Team Lead at Estate Intel. He spent over 2 years at Broll in Nigeria as the Lead Research Analyst working on market and feasibility studies for international and local institutional real estate investors. Dolapo also spent over a year at AXA Mansard Investments as an Alternative Investment Analyst. Dolapo is a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (UK) with a specialty in Commercial Property Research and also holds a BSc in Investment and Finance in Property from the University of Reading, UK.

Sean Godoy is a property professional with 10 years’ experience in the property industry. Most of his professional experience has been in property market analysis where he has developed a strong understanding. He has a strong interest in cities and emerging economies. Sean is passionate about SA, Africa, poverty alleviation, and education. In his own capacity and through his role on the executive committee of the South Africa Chamber of Commerce in London, he actively promotes and facilitates business and charitable activity between the UK, SA, and afield.

Sethebe Manake is a business owner, standing at the helm of Botswana’s first Property Research and Consulting Firm.  She has extensive experience in the real estate industry particularly with pension fund portfolios, listed property portfolios, consortiums, joint ventures and privately owned portfolios. Her last corporate role was Chief Executive Officer of listed property company Letlole La Rona, before being offered a regional Asset Management position at Stanlib South Africa. Sethebe holds a Bachelor of Science in Property Studies from the University of Cape Town and a Master of Science in Strategic Management from the University of Derby and Botswana Accountancy College.

Rupert’s career in the property market spans 18 years, during which he has held several positions of senior leadership. He left the conventional real estate sector to pursue his interests in the disruptive proptech sector, and in 2020 he helped establish EasyProperties. He is a former English teacher with advanced degrees in business and management from the UNISA Business School and Proptech from the University of Oxford Business School.

Jarrod is the Divisional Director: Technology as well as Account Director at Cushman & Wakefield | Broll, with experience in large multi-national portfolio management, strategy management and transaction management. He leans specially on Technology and Proptech influences to being key drivers of his strategic outlook. He identifies with innovative solution
making and cutting-edge industry thought-leadership.

Kundayi is a co-founder and executive director of Sesfikile Capital. He holds a BSc. (Hons) in Property Studies from the University of Cape Town (UCT) and a CFA designation. He recently completed his Private Equity and Venture Capital course and Program for Leadership Development (PLD) at Harvard Business School. He began his career at Old Mutual Properties and moved to Investec Bank as a property valuer. He then moved to Investec Property Investments as a buy-side analyst and was appointed head of research leading the team of analysts in SA, UK, and Australia.

A civil engineer turn entrepreneur, Joshua Raphael is intent on using technology to create solutions that disrupt and significantly shift the needle. Since childhood, he has envisioned himself as an inventor and problem solver. At Parket his aim is to disrupt the parking industry – to put parking real estate to better use – in a way that creates value for landlords and retailers across the sector, while providing effortless convenience for consumers and positively benefitting the planet. An avid and long time proponent of Crypto. Josh believes that the move towards decentralization in money, government and authority is another example of technology taking us to a utilitarian future.

Will Harris is the CEO of Gmaven – a business focused on digitising businesses in the commercial real estate (CRE) industry. A Chartered Accountant by training, after time at Silicon Valley Bank, and declining a promotion at Sasol, he instead accepted an offer in the world of commercial property. Since then, together with a team of extremely talented and dedicated team mates, he has bet fourteen years, and counting, of his working life on driving efficiencies and reducing massive human pain in the enormously complicated $29T CRE industry.

A thought leader and independent consultant on real estate investment and ESG strategies, Phil Barttram has over 25 years’ experience in the financial sector having worked in the UK, South Africa and the Middle East He previously spent close to a decade as an Executive Director at MSCI and recently joined the ranks of entrepreneurship Phil’s interest lies in investment strategy and portfolio optimization, underpinned by his conviction that early adopters of data virtualisation and next gen analytics will benefit from both pricing and strategic advantage Phil holds an MBA from UCT’s GSB and currently serves on the boards of GBCSA and the SACSC, and as a member of the SA Reits Association Research Committee

Thompson is the Managing Broker of eXp South Africa, appointed by eXp Global President, Michael Valdes in 2020. Thompson has more than two decades experience as a key role-player in property development, marketing, sales and tourism across Southern Africa and Mauritius. Born in the Eastern Cape, Thompson worked his way up the tourism industry ladder in positions with prestigious hotel groups in Southern Africa, including Protea Hotels, Southern Sun, Cresta, Tsogo Sun and The Three Cities Group. He has travelled extensively throughout Africa, and at 26, he was the youngest general manager at the Cresta Thapama Lodge, Botswana. Thompson held the position of Sales Director for a catalytic property developer on the North Coast of KwaZulu-Natal, for over 10 years. Additionally, he headed real estate agency franchise, Keller Williams, Umhlanga Rocks as agency Principal before eXp Realty invited him to head up their expansion into South Africa. Captivated by the dynamic company, its visionary operating model and the warmth of the team, Thompson viewed joining eXp as a golden opportunity to be part of the property industry’s most disruptive real estate brokerage in modern history. In just 18-months from launch, eXp SA has grown to over 500 agents, with representation in all 9 of South Africa’s provinces. The cloud-based brokerage operates seamlessly out of a highly sophisticated virtual workplace, and the agent-centric company culture is wholly embraced by a rapidly growing team of property professionals. Thompson brings a unique perspective with both his hospitality and property development experience to the global eXp leadership structure within eXp World Holdings and eXp Realty. Powered by eXp’s technology, an authentic company culture focussed on agent success, the ongoing global interaction and learning, he’s determined to establish eXp SA as a vibrant community of thriving, property entrepreneurs.

Kevin Teeroovengadum has an MBA and M.Sc. in Finance. He worked for KPMG, Deloitte, Ernst & Young in corporate finance and business consultancy before moving to Loita Capital Partners Group. Kevin joined Actis as a Director as part of their Africa real estate team. At Actis, he led the origination of a number of new developments and assisted in fund raising for Actis’ 2 nd real estate fund. He also led the sale of 2 major assets i.e. Accra Mall in Ghana and Capital Properties in Tanzania to offshore buyers and setting the pricing benchmark for investment grade properties in Africa.

Tola is the co-founder and CEO at Spleet, a financial services and prop-tech startup fractionalizing rent into monthly payments. Tola is an accomplished product manager and designer with over 11 years of experience working on products in the fintech, real estate and banking industry. In addition to product management and design, Tola has experience in operations management and project coordination. His passion for solving problems in Africa and for social impact led him to create Spleet: a property tech company that is changing the way people rent homes in Nigeria and beyond. Tola is an avid chess player and a collector and enthusiast of contemporary African art.

A passionate green economy entrepreneur, Kevin James, is dedicated to driving opportunities that have a positive environmental and social impact. Inspired by his sustainability vision, Kevin founded Global Carbon Exchange (GCX) in 2012. GCX is an environmental sustainability and data analytics company that helps large corporations navigate their environmental and business performance. In addition to his role as CEO of GCX, Kevin is a Director at Zero Waste Technologies, an engineering and waste project development company focused on the commercialisation of waste-to-energy and other circular economy opportunities. He also serves as a Non-Executive Director of Green Building Council South Africa (GBCSA). As a sustainability specialist, Kevin is seasoned in strategic corporate sustainability, as well as in the development of green, low carbon projects. Known as the “carbon expert” in sustainability
circles, he regularly contributes his thought-leadership to both mainstream and specialist media. He hosted a feature on Radio 2000’s drivetime show with Ernest Pillay that tackled climate and sustainability current affairs from 2011 – 2018. He has also spoken on various esteemed event platforms about carbon matters and sustainability.

With 12 years of experience, I am a multi-award winning engineer and green building consultant who has worked for multinational engineering consulting firms including Greendesign, AECOM, WSP and Volkswagen. For green buildings, my career began in 2010 when I was a part of the WSP-LUC-DHK winning team for the Wangari Maathai Institute for Peace & Environmental Studies international design competition where the institute was to be carbon-neutral. Since then, I have been passionate about net-zero green buildings that do less harm to people and to the climate and environment – understanding that Africa is the most vulnerable continent to climate change with women in Africa being disproportionately impacted. I am experienced in green building contextualisation, design and certification of over 250,000 sqm of office, hospitality, healthcare, retail, education, industrial and precinct projects across the continent including in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. The first Green Star project that I submitted to the Green Building Council South Africa as the Green Star Accredited Professional was awarded a South African Property Owners Association award for Overall Winner in 2015. I am also a Faculty Member of the Green Building Council South Africa where I have trained hundreds of professionals in Green Star rating tools as part of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) programme. In 2020, I was invited to support the MENA & Africa Regional Networks of the World Green Building Council. In 2021, I was appointed for the role of Head of Africa Programmes for the World Green Building Council building to COP27 which will be hosted in Africa in 2022. In this role, I support our regional programmes with the African Union, International Finance Corporation, C40 Cities and of the 12 green building councils across the continent to catalyse the uptake of sustainable built environments for everyone, everywhere. To me, fighting for the planet is fighting for 1.38 billion people across Africa – so green buildings and facilitating access to sustainable finance for climate change mitigation, adaptation and resilience in cities, businesses and vulnerable communities in Africa is one of my most important fights for our continent. As a climate diplomacy and climate change activist, I have won multiple international and national awards, including being featured on the cover of Forbes magazine in June 2018 and speaking at both the Forbes Africa and Forbes Europe summits on how cities and the built environment can address climate change.

Dennis Papa Odenyi Quansah is Program Lead for IFC EDGE Green Building Market Transformation Program in Ghana and Nigeria. He is an Urban Development professional with experience in the built environment in Ghana. His expertise includes Sustainable Real Estate Development, Real Estate Marketing and Agency, Real Estate Management, Real Estate Valuation and Business Development. He has also undertaken socio-economic surveys for voluntary relocation and other resettlement packages. He holds an MSc in Urban Policy and Development and an Undergraduate degree in Land Economy in Ghana. He is also a member of the Ghana Institution of Surveyors.

Mr. Annechino has 10+ years of international business experience working in emerging markets including Europe, Middle East, and Africa. Mr. Annechino joined EchoStone after leading international business development activities for an innovative technology company. He comes to EchoStone with direct experience working with governments, the United Nations, USAID, and other international development organizations. Mr. Annechino has presented at major international events including the United Nations General Assembly and World Health Assembly, in addition to contributing to relevant published articles in global health. Mr. Annechino holds an undergraduate degree from Saint John Fisher College as well as an MBA from the University of Rochester.