Directors

Edge Growth’s core team consists of values-driven, highly qualified, highly experienced, highly committed and passionate individuals. Our members have very broad and deep skill sets and ; Edge Growth's 5 executive Directors cumulatively boast 11 degrees in business, engineering, accounts, finance, development and agricultural science - including 4 post-graduate degrees - and multiple diplomas in various business-related areas.

The 5 Directors have experience in starting SMEs, and 2 have experience in managing and growing SMEs. They all have worked with the top global management consulting firms. Their holistic involvement in business includes:

• Operations: major systems overhauls; business process re-engineering; technology sourcing, procurement and implementation.
• Strategy: corporate strategy; business unit strategy; functional strategy; SME subsidiary strategy.
• Commerce: business planning, joint venture negotiations and execution, start-up planning, product commercialisation
• Finance: risk modelling, economic modelling, financial modelling and many others.

Below follows a brief resumé of each of the Directors:

Jason Goldberg Jason is a founding Director of Edge Growth- a consultancy focused on helping multi-national firms with Small Enterprise Development (ED) strategy and implementation - where he has developed ED strategies for companies ranging from the world’s largest mines to South Africa’s largest banks. Jason currently heads up the Investment Team at Edge Growth managing the social venture capital fund in partnership with the First Rand Group.

Jason was a business strategy consultant with Bain & Company, has facilitated corporate venturing and start-ups, was Investment Principal and C.O.O at a Private Equity Investment Trust investing exclusively in SMEs, and developed a virtual incubation methodology to unlock growth in SMEs. 

Jason has been the keynote speaker at several conferences on Enterprise Development and sustainable 
socio-economic development, and was invited as one of 30 global panel speakers at the watershed Second International Business Forum on Financing for Development in Doha in November 2008, the primary global forum for government, business, and civil society to advance best practice approaches to enterprise development financing. Jason has studied global Enterprise Development best practice, attended global forums on entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development, and has been invited to attend the United Nations Follow-up International Conference on Financing for Development. 

Jason has a degree in Electrical Engineering, a post-graduate degree in Sustainable Development, and is undertaking a Master’s thesis in sustainable enterprise development financing.
Jason's CV
Read more about Jason on LinkedIN.

Danny Hatfield With a combined analytical/commerce skill set from his tertiary education, Danny began a career in strategy and process consulting with Accenture (Strategy & Business Architecture division). His early focus was building and applying SME diagnostic tools while later he spent the majority of his time developing and implementing Organisational Performance Management Systems (OPMS) for SMEs.

As a result Danny was instrumental in establishing Accenture’s ‘High Performance’ competence locally. Danny was hired by FNB on the back of this experience to implement a similar ‘owner/manager’ performance system for the 500 branch businesses in the retail network. He then joined the Personal Bank within FirstRand to launch the Joint Ventures division. There, he was almost exclusively involved in building and incubating growth businesses in the consumer banking space. These businesses initiatives ranged from Corporate (co-branding) Alliances to launching new ‘white labeled’ products e.g. Discovery Card, FNB Vehicle Finance. In this role he has also lead specific M&A initiatives in the retail banking and insurance broking space, both locally and abroad.

Danny was drawn out of corporate to start Edge Growth by the realization that his passion & competence to grow SMEs (Enterprise Development or “ED”) could not only contribute to the building of a sustainable business in its own right but more importantly be instrumental in job creation and poverty elevation.

At the inception of Edge Growth, Danny was responsible for developing ED strategies for large corporates, particularly in the mining & financial services sector. In a number of instances he drove the translation of these strategies into action, enabling ED to become ‘real’ in the organizations. He has also been involved in implementing ED at grass roots, with his most recent project being the set up of the first Internet Café in the Orange Farm Township.

Over the last 2 years Danny been instrumental in building an ED Fund Management Business (known as “Vumela”), which is structured as an alliance between First National Bank and Edge Growth and has been part of the management team that has simultaneously set up and managed FirstRand’s ED Fund (~90m). This ED Fund has been set up as a separate business with the view to creating a precedent in the market for investing in the ‘missing middle’ asset class (i.e. with triple bottom line returns- Financial, Social and Transformational). Vumela’s value proposition to set up and manage customised ‘missing middle’ funds for Corporates/Donors/Government launched to the public in October 2010.

Danny has a BSc.Eng (Elec-Mech Eng, Honours), a B.Comm (Financial Accounts) and has obtained his Level III qualification from the CFA Institute.
Danny's CV
Read more about Danny on LinkedIN.

Nicholas Hall Whilst at university, Nicholas assisted with the start up of a steel gate making business in the garage of a home for the rehabilitation of recovering addicts. The core objective of this business was not so much profit but to give the people the dignity of being productive and a skill for when they reintegrated into society. “Noise pollution” caused the operation to be shut down, but the seed of the importance of a job to a person’s destiny had been sown.

After finishing his degree, Nicholas spent 15 years in the motor industry, working his way from junior economist to researcher, to Strategy Planning Manager for BMW SA and General Manager, Planning and Research at Nissan SA. Heading up the sales, marketing and logistics business implementation of SAP at Nissan ignited a deep interest in the power of integrating business and system design. This resulted in Nicholas leaving the motor industry to start up the Southern Africa operations of ADP Clearing, a subsidiary of ADP, a NYSE Top 100 company. By applying Kaizen quality experience to international procedures and securing the South African subsidiary ISO9000 compliance, the company became an outsource centre for high cost European subsidiaries, resulting in staffing levels growing from 25 to 150 and compound annual revenue growth of 33% during the five years he headed the operation. Nicholas moved on to Project Manage an Absa initiative to integrate Basel II risk costs into the company’s sales tools and decision making process whilst also starting up an IT company that has developed Mango Airlines' revenue accounting module.

Nicholas has a BComm from Wits and an MBA from Brunel, London.
Nicholas' CV

Stuart Townshend Stuart started his career as a strategy consultant with Accenture where he gained experience across a range of industries, and in particular spent one year in their venture capital fund assisting with selection and growth of dotcom businesses. Stuart then moved on to work for other corporates, namely UTi and Gold Fields, where he gained good experience in Performance Management Systems, Supply Chain Management and Logistics, Key Account Management, Sales, Supplier Diversity Management and Strategic Partnership Management.

Stuart then moved on to start a low cost coffin manufacturing company which he established, grew and sold.  After this, Stuart joined a small venture in the mining industry. In this venture he raised capital for a Tantalite mine in Zimbabwe, initiated operations on the mine, grew production and then exited. Stuart has been involved in a number of startup ventures, either as an advisor or directly involved.

Stuart has a B.Comm (Economics) from R.A.U and Post Graduate Diploma in Management (Wits Business School).

Stuart's CV
Read more about Stuart on LinkedIN.

Calvin Fambisayi Calvin became an Edge Growth Director in December 2010 when Agri-Sense Consultancy became a minority shareholder in Edge Growth. Synergies resulting from the Edge Growth and Agri-Sense Consultancy partnership will ensure that Edge Growth will be able to further increase their impact in the Enterprise Development space.

Calvin has a Masters Degrees in Plant Genetics from Birmingham University and Business Administration from Nottingham Trent University (UK) – he also has a Bachelor of Science degree in Agriculture (Zimbabwe).

Calvin’s expertise and experience will be utilised in Edge Growth’s Enterprise Development and Preferential Procurement strategy division, he will also be responsible for driving the development of an agricultural ED division;  another area of passion and expertise .

Over the past 17 years Calvin has developed expertise in the following areas – research & development (R&D), commercial agriculture, intellectual property commercialisation, broad-based black economic empowerment, mining charter compliance and business services consultancy.

Calvin kicked-off his professional career in 1993 with Cargill Incorporated, currently the largest privately held distribution and agricultural commodity firm based in the US, as a plant breeder in Zimbabwe. He assumed the position of research & development manager in 1997 before taking over as country manager in 2001. By this time Monsanto had fully acquired all the Cargill maize seed businesses globally except in North America and Canada. Monsanto began focusing on  product development and appointed Calvin as their Product Development Lead for sub-Saharan Africa based in South Africa in April 2002.

Calvin left Monsanto in October 2003 to join the National Research Foundation’s Innovation Fund. There he was part of a team tasked with setting up a commercialisation office which focused on attracting intellectual property produced from publicly funded institutions like universities and research councils. In 2005 he joined BHP Billiton, a large mining company, and was responsible for developing and implementing a strategy that would see South African operations increase procurement from previously disadvantaged suppliers. It was during this period that Calvin built extensive experience in the new elements of the BEE Codes;  Preferential Procurement and Enterprise Development. Calvin has enjoyed healthy working relationships with numerous stakeholders including Chamber of Mines, DMR, DTI, SAIBL involved in Enterprise Development work. In 2008, Calvin decided to form  Agri-Sense, a consultancy designed to assist businesses with Preferential Procurement and Enterprise Development strategies and implementation. In addition,  Calvin is the non-executive chairman of a life science technology company called Mycoroot  and provides his consulting services for  the International Fertilizer Development Centre (IFDC) in Nigeria &  the African Agicultural Technology Foundation (AATF) in Kenya.

Calvin's CV

Dr Gil Mahlati Dr. Gil Mahlati is a surgeon by training with 13 years experience in business. He joined the business world as an Executive Director in a Financial Service Entity covering Retail, Banking, Private Equity, Asset Management, Insurance and Health Risk Management for 7 years.

During the last 4 years he has participated in various empowerment transactions including Old Mutual, Nedbank and Mutual & Federal.  He also sits on various boards including listed companies in the Mining, Healthcare and Logistic Sectors.
 
Gil’s  major strengths are in the fields of strategy, transformation and transcontinental business development. This vast knowledge and passion has lead him to start a number of companies. He understands the constraints to growing businesses in the SA context and has learnt many of the hard entrepreneurial lessons along the way.

Edge invited Gil to be part of their Board both because of the commitment, value and knowledge that he brings to the company. His skills and experience in starting and running small businesses, his technical legal expertise in deal structuring as well as his extensive networking sources will be a great assets to the business. In addition, Edge Growth and Vuwa look to partner in the development of their portfolio companies through our virtual incubator (Growth Accelerator), making it a sound investment for both parties.

Tshidi Ramogase Tshidi Ramogase, currently the Director of Corporate Affairs at SAB Miller  joined Edge Growth in March 2010 as a non-executive director. Tshidi’s understanding of ED on both a strategic and operational level, make her an asset to the Edge Growth board.

Born and raised in the East Rand - Katlehong, Tshidi Ramogase studied a Bachelor of Social Science Degree and did a Post Graduate Diploma in Organisation and Management at the University of Cape Town. 

Her professional career spanning 14 years started in the Mining Industry as a Graduate Trainee in HR.  Her skill and abilities resulted in a steady career progression as she  occupied various roles in HR from HR Generalist, Training Manager and Organizational Development(OD) Specialist in the FMCG industry. During the first quarter of 2008 she moved into the area of Transformation Management in the mining industry. It was in her position as Transformation Manager that she built experience in the BEE space. In addition to the other elements of the scorecard, Tshidi was responsible for building and implementing an effective ED and PP strategy for Samancor. This required excellent stakeholder management and she was exposed to the challenges of implementing strategies across a number of divisions within BHP Billiton.  Her knowledge and passion for building systems that work and her understanding of the challenges that result from ED implementation make her an invaluable source of insight and advice to Edge Growth. She is currently Corporate Affairs Director for ABI, soft drinks division of South African Breweries Limited based in Sandton.

Tshidi’s passion for South Africa, its people and sustainable poverty alleviation are aligned to Edge Growth’s core values and she sits on our board, confident of Edge Growth’s ability to design ED solutions that work and that will  address some of the developmental challenges we face as a country.

Read more about Tshidi on LinkedIN.