Africa Proptech Speakers

James is recognised as one of the leading thought leaders on the future of the real estate market. He is the Co-Founder of Unissu, the global leader of PropTech data, information and resources,and has an unrivalled perspective on global PropTech trends. As a result, he is a much sought-after speaker on the future of the property industry both in terms of how people and companies in the sector should adapt to facilitate change.

John Kuruvilla, Cofounder & CRO, Kalpnik Technologies & Chief Mentor, Brigade REAP comes with over 3 decades of diverse experience covering Marketing, Sales, Brand building, Customer Relations, Revenue Management, Pricing, P&L responsibility, Entrepreneurship, Mentorship & Investing. He has been instrumental in the creation of several successful brands in India including award winning & memorable campaigns like Hamara Bajaj, Maruti Omni, Maruti Gypsy, Kawasaki Cheetah, Toyota Qualis, Hitachi air conditioners among others. A win at Cannes was the crowning glory in a career spanning 15 years in Advertising and Brand building.

Kim van Rooyen is a Director at Turner & Townsend, currently based in the UK. With over 25 years’ experience in both the construction and technology sectors Kim has helped clients harness innovation and deliver real benefits from the delivery of their capital programmes and operational use of the asset. He has worked in both the public and private sector, delivering projects and programmes in six continents and plays a key part in disrupting the construction sector through his role at Turner & Townsend. More recently his focus has been on helping clients with their Digital Transformation journey, linking the human side with the machine so real tangible benefits can be realised. Kim will use this session to share some of his experiences of how businesses are using Digital to address the productivity and environmental agenda.

Clive is the former Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Accenture South Africa, and has 28 years management consulting experience. During his tenure at Accenture (formerly Arthur Anderson and Anderson Consulting), he played numerous leadership roles including managing director of Accenture South Africa’s Technology business as well as managing director of Accenture’s Resources and Utilities businesses. In addition to his COO role, during the last 6 years, he led sales for Accenture’s Technology business, cultivating an entrepreneurial mind-set, which helped grow Accenture into one of the top emerging market companies. Clive has developed deep technology skills from working across multiple industries including Financial Services, Resources, Retail, Automotive and Communications. He has leveraged these technology and business transformation skills and helped drive significant shareholder value for many South African clients. Since January 2013, he has supported and mentored many technology businesses, assisting them in driving growth. Clive sits on the boards of numerous IT companies. Clive joined Arthur Anderson in 1985 (now Accenture) after graduating from the University of the Witwatersrand with a B.Sc. degree in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics. Clive joined Grovest, section 12J venture capital company in 2012, as a non- executive director. In 2016, Clive formed a new venture capital company, Kalon Venture Partners, focusing on investing in digital disruptive technologies.

Nikki Greenberg is a futurist and thought leader in the real estate industry. As Founder of Real Estate of the Future, she directs real estate developers and owners on ways to capitalize on PropTech and disruptive innovations to gain an edge in an ever-changing environment. She is a frequent speaker at leading real estate and technology conferences around the world. In 2020 in response to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global real estate industry, she launched American PropTech Academy, bringing together industry leaders to share their best practices to help optimize recovery through the application of innovation and technology. She also founded Women in PropTech, a global, virtual members organization in 2018 to foster greater diversity in the industry. Nikki is a South African born, Australian national that now resides in New York City. With a focus on innovation, Nikki brings big-picture strategic thinking to the full real estate lifecycle. She entered the property industry through her established career in architecture where she worked on multi-award winning transformative projects with Lendlease, Koichi Takada, Silverstein and others. She is an alumni of the UNSW in Sydney, Australia where she attained Masters of International Business with a focus on China; Masters of Architecture and Bachelors of Architecture with honors. Nikki is the Founder and CEO of Women in PropTech, the leading global PropTech networking and education organization. She is in her second term as co-chair of the Urban Land Institute’s New York Technology and Innovation Council and has previously held leadership positions with the National Women in Construction and Propelle. Nikki is devoted to charitable endeavors and in 2005 could be found in Thailand where she lent her expertise to rebuilding villages affected by the South East Asian Tsunami. In 2020 she became a Habitat for Humanity Featured Woman in Technology.

HouseME co-founder and ex-Investment Banker, Ben worked in the M&A team of J.P. Morgan before building HouseME, Africa’s first consolidated residential rental platform. His background in finance and accounting and experience in both corporate and startup worlds uniquely positions him for his role as CEO. Ben is a published trends writer, property commentator and technology evangelist. HouseME automates the renting process from procurement to lease management, all for just 2.5%.

Menno Lammers (1977) is the quartermaster of the PropTech for Good movement. The PropTech for Good Movement propels Real Estate and Technology forward to support the UN Sustainable Development Goals. By stimulating connections between the Sustainable Development Goals, real estate and technology, we experience the endless human possibilities. This empowers us to create future-proof environments for everyone. Menno is the founder of PropTechNL, one of the founding board members of the PropTech House, the European network and a much sought-after strategy sparring partner to the boards of real estate companies. As a strategic advisor Menno worked for companies like Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, Heimstaden Nederland, Savills, Syntrus Achmea Real Estate & Finance, Rijksvastgoedbedrijf (part of the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations).

Jacque Coetzee graduated from University of Pretoria with a BCom Informatics and holds a Masters of Business Administration from Henley Business School in the UK. Jacque has
played multiple roles in financial services, from running IT for business divisions, to delivery of  large-scale programmes and defining and implementing strategic IT transformation. At
Nedbank he has headed the Programme Management Office (PMO) and most recently is an executive in Nedbank’s Digital team responsible for delivering the bank’s digital strategy and
New Ways of Work project. Jacque believes that the new distribution strategy for financial services must be rooted in an open banking/API-driven capability where the outcome is a
networked and platform-orientated organisation that leverages the power of partnerships underpinned by data.

Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director – Fortress REIT Limited Date of appointment: April 2016 Steven entered the property industry, after completing his articles, as a listed property analyst in 2008 for Corovest. Following this, Steven joined Standard Bank’s Global Markets division in the equity derivatives finance team and thereafter joined the South African real estate division focusing on structured lending and equity transactions. From 2013, Steven has been involved with a number of listed real estate companies focusing on deal origination and structuring. Steven joined Fortress REIT Limited from Capital Property Fund after the acquisition in December 2015.

Gil Sperling is the CEO of Flow, a proptech platform which is revolutionising how people rent and live. Sperling started his career as an engineer, and was one three founding partners of Popimedia, one of Africa’s biggest ad-tech and performance marketing companies. Popimedia went on to be bought by French based global communications group – Publicis. Through his experience and expertise within the tech industry, Sperling, together with the co-founders of Flow, are revolutionising the economics of rent with a shared value approach, bringing in behavioral economics to make the entire renting process more affordable, more transparent and more seamless.

Kerwen has 18 years’ experience in project management in the built environment, 12 of which were in building and civil (structural) construction in the public and private sectors in SA, Swaziland, Mauritius and Kenya. Before joining Nedbank in 2019, he worked for IBM where he was responsible for the delivery of innovation and data centres in Sierra Leone, Mauritius and Seychelles, and as Executive Head: Commercial Property Valuations and Project Management – SA and Rest of Africa in CIB Real Estate Finance, Standard Bank.

Wendy Cerutti is an Associate Director at Turner & Townsend, currently based in Johannesburg. Wendy Cerutti is Head of Cost Management in Johannesburg for Turner & Townsend and also holds responsibility for integrating and deploying PropTech into our South African business. She has 16 years’ experience working across Africa and the United Kingdom delivering projects in the end-user fit out, hi-tech, rail infrastructure, commercial, mixed use development and programme management for financial and retail clients. Wendy is a Member of the South Africa Council for the Quantity Surveying profession and  holds an BSc (Hons) Quantity Surveying from the University of the Witwatersrand.

Kashira is an experienced tech entrepreneur, innovation and disruption enthusiast, chartered accountant and a venture capitalist.  She is the co-founder of two South African technology companies, one which is a tech-security analytics business that has been launched in the United States and an analytics company. She has also co-founded one of the largest polyurethane foam manufacturing business in sub-Saharan Africa.  She is currently part of Nedbank Venture Capital, where she responsible for the evaluation of tech investments opportunities, investment valuations, financial modelling, deal sourcing and is specifically working on a Nedbank VC expansion plan into Asian markets. She is a mentor to tech start-up companies, particularly those companies in the StartUpBootCamp accelerator program and PlugandPlay accelerator program. Over and above her Venture Capital responsibilities, she has been working for the last few months in the Nedbank Disruption and Innovation team where she has built networks and sourced top quality technology companies from around the world (San Francisco, New York, South-East Asia, Singapore, Bangalore, Israel etc).  She has also completed the Oxford University (UK) Fintech Programme. Kashira believes it is important to unlock opportunities of technology companies on the African continent and aims to form a bridge between other emerging technologies onto the African continent. She believes that by addressing the significant funding gaps and through investing in technological innovation within emerging economies, it will create a meaningful impact on many lives and the world as a whole.

Andrew runs www.workplacefundi.com an independent Workplace and Facilities Management consultancy focused on helping organisations unlock workplace performance. Andrew has over 35 years experience in the built environment creating and managing amazing workplaxcces so people can do amazing work. He is the current Chairman of the South African Facilities Management Association (SAFMA) and a member of the Institute of Workplace and Facilities Management. He is also the current South African Ambassdor for Euro FM. Andrew has had experience in facilities strategy and operations in the UK, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Mozambique, Botswana ,Lesotho and Zimbabwe as well as further afield in Malaysia, Jordan, Abu Dhabi and Dubai.