Management Team

Thabane Vincent Maphai (Vincent)

Chairman: Taquanta Investment Holdings; Chairman: BHP Billiton

Vincent Maphai is the former Chairman of BHP Billiton, Southern Africa. In this role, he is responsible for coordinating the activities of different operations in South Africa and Mozambique, as well as assisting business development on the continent. He is currently Corporate Affairs Director at The SAB-Miller Company, and Chair of Castle Brewing Company, Namibia.

Dr Maphai joined the private sector in 1998 after an academic career spanning more than two decades. He taught locally at the Universities of Transkei, Witwatersrand, Western Cape, Cape Town and Pretoria. He holds degrees from the Universities of Natal, UNISA and the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. He also participated in the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School. The University of Pretoria awarded him a degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Honoris Causa in 2007. He has held various teaching and research fellowships at institutions abroad, including Oxford, Harvard, Princeton and Stanford.

He has also been involved in various public policy projects and roles. Currently he chairs the Council of the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the South African Trust for Responsible Gambling. He was appointed Chairman of the Presidential Review Commission by President Mandela, and Chairman of the South African Broadcasting Corporation by President Mbeki.

Justin Kretzschmar (Justin)

CEO and Executive Director: Taquanta Investment Holdings

Justin holds a B Econ degree from Rhodes University where he majored in Economics and Industrial Psychology.

He began his career in 1995 as a bank credit analyst with IBCA (formerly Republic Ratings) before joining Frankel Pollack Securities in 1996 where he worked as a Banking Analyst and later headed up in the financial research team before joining SG Securities’ institutional trading desk as Head of EMEA equity sales.

In 2001 Justin moved to Nedbank Limited to head up the bank’s portfolio of IT investments representing the bank on various boards both locally and internationally. This was followed by various roles within Nedbank as a divisional executive member including various new business venture reviews and group merger and acquisition activities.

This led to Justin taking on the role of acting CEO of the Taquanta group of companies in early 2007. When Taquanta left the Nedbank fold, Justin chose to take up a permanent role in Taquanta as the CEO.

Sandile Zungu (Sandile)

Non-executive director: Taquanta Investment Holdings
Chairman: Zungu Investments Company (ZICO)

Born in Durban’s Umlazi Township, Sandile has a BSc (Mechanical Engineering) degree from the University of Cape Town (UCT) and a Masters In Business Administration (MBA) from the UCT Graduate School of Business. He also holds a Program for Global Leadership certificate at the Harvard Business School in Boston, USA.

He established SARHWU Investment Holdings – now Zungu Investments Company (ZICO) in 1997 and over the next three-and-a-half years, grew the company from a zero asset base to more than R400 million in the net value of its assets. In August 2000 joined the then R6 billion New Africa Investments Limited (NAIL) as executive director responsible for strategy and empowerment, leaving 18 months later after its complete transformation to a R1-billion media company.

He serves on the boards of numerous companies. He is chairman of the JSE-listed Aflease Gold and a non-executive director of Viamax Fleet Solutions, Uranium One Africa and KwaZulu-Natal Growth Fund. He also serves on the Advisory Board of the UCT Graduate School of Business.

In 1998 he led SARHWU Investment Holdings to becoming BusinessMap Dealmaker of The Year. In 2000 he represented South Africa at the 6th finals of the World Young Business Achievers, which were held in Florida, USA and won the much-coveted Outstanding Business Strategy award. Zungu features in the Financial Mail’s Little Black Book profiling South Africa’s most influential blacks and is a member of the World Economic Forum in his capacity as Young Global Leader.

William Rowland (William)

Non-executive director: Taquanta Investment Holdings
Chairperson: DEC Investment Holding Company Ltd

A former student at the Pioneer School for the Blind in Worcester, Dr Rowland completed a Masters degree at the University of South Africa before being awarded a Doctorate of Philosophy from University of Cape Town for his thesis entitled “Being-Blind-in-the-World”.

After serving as the National Executive Director of South African National Council for the Blind for many years, he is now the organisation’s Honourary President. He is also CEO of the Thabo Mbeki Development Trust for Disabled People, an agency providing skills development, assistive technology, and poverty alleviation.

He is closely involved with a range of local and international organisations that promote the interests of the disabled including Disabled People South Africa (Honorary President); World Blind Union (President); and International Council for Education of People with Visual Impairment (Director). He is also a member of UN Panel of Experts monitoring the implementation of the Standard Rules; an adviser on community-based rehabilitation to World Health Organization; and a member of Task Force implementing the Global Program on Disability and Development of the World Bank.

Gregory Cronje (Greg)

Chief Operating Officer: Taquanta Investment Holdings

A qualified Chartered Accountant with a BCompt Accounting Honours degree from Unisa, Greg joined Nedbank Limited in 1998 where he was responsible for the acquisitions, management and disposals of the various technology entities in which the bank had invested.

He later moved to Nedbank’s central Mergers and Acquisitions division where he was involved in the Bank’s disposal of assets deemed to be non-core to its strategy as well as advisory work for divisions within Nedbank. Taquanta was one such investment where advisory work had been provided and when Taquanta moved out of the Nedbank fold, given its exciting prospects, Greg chose to move to Taquanta as its CFO.

Stephen Rogers (Steve)

Joint Managing Director: Taquanta Asset Managers (Cash)

Born in Port Elizabeth, Steve completed his high school education at Wynberg Boys High in Cape Town before going on to obtain a FCIS and Honours degree in Treasury Management from Unisa.

He started his career at Syfrets, rising to the position of Group Treasurer before starting up a cash asset management unit at NIB Treasury – the forerunner to what is now the cash side of Taquanta Asset Managers. With Steve at the helm, Taquanta Cash – in its various iterations – has consistently been the top performing cash manager in South Africa.

Stephen Roberts (Steve)

Joint Managing Director: Taquanta Asset Managers (Quants)

Born and educated in England, Steve came to South Africa – armed with a BA (Hons) degree in Industrial Economics from Nottingham University and experience as a technical analyst – to join UAL Investment Bank’s Investment Division in 1981.

There he was responsible for investment modelling and a number of areas of equity research before moving into unit trust and institutional retirement fund portfolio management.

In 1996 he established UAL’s passive management business in Cape Town before taking on responsibility for the NIB Structured Products business. He later co-founded, and subsequently headed up NIB Quants, NIB’s independent quantitative investment management company and the forerunner of the Quants side of Taquanta Asset Managers.

Peer Iuel (Peer)

Managing Director: Taquanta Securities

Born and raised in the picturesque village of Haenertsburg in the Magoebaskloof area of Limpopo Province, Peer completed his schooling at St Albans in Pretoria before moving to Cape Town to obtain a B.Comm. ( Hons ) degree from UCT and qualifying as a CA(SA). He later obtained a SAIFM (South African Institute of Financial Markets) qualification.

After completing his articles at Ernst and Young, and spending a few years in the clothing industry, Peer decided accountancy was not for him and he entered the stockbroking fraternity in 1987. He joined the Nedbank Group in 1995 as MD of UAL Securities, the forerunner of Taquanta Securities.