Staying Secure With Brendan Horan

Brendan Horan is a chartered accountant who has served as Managing Director of MiX Telematics Africa since June 2014, when the firm’s fleet and consumer businesses on the continent were merged into one business.

Founded in 1996, MiX Telematics has grown into a leading global provider of fleet and mobile asset management solutions, and is listed on both the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and on the New York Stock Exchange.

Using a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) delivery model, MiX Telematics delivers solutions to customers in more than 120 countries, across 6 continents— with offices in South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States, Uganda, Brazil, Australia and the United Arab Emirates.

 

Banking Africa With Stephen van Coller

Stephen van Coller is the Chief Executive for Corporate and Investment Banking at Barclays Africa.

Stephen is a Chartered Accountant who worked for Ernst & Young in South Africa and the UK for many years, before leaving the professional accounting industry to join Deutsche Bank— where he served as head of coverage and corporate advisory.

Since joining Barclays in 2006, Stephen has held the positions of Deputy Chief Executive and Head of Investment Banking at Absa Capital and was appointed to his current position in 2009.

In this extended chat, Stephen talks about how Barclays Plc’s imminent plans to shed its investments in Africa will impact the business he runs, and why he is confident that fintech startups on the continent will never completely disrupt incumbents within the financial services industry.

First published in African Tech Conversations.

 

From Punk Rocker To Tech VC With Brandon Doyle

After manning the helm of Africa’s largest Technology, Media, and Telecommunications (TMT) sector focused fund manager for nearly a decade, Brandon Doyle seems to have thoroughly shed any visible trace of his punk rock past.

Since co-founding Convergence Partners in 2006, Brandon and his team (many of whom are Charted Accountant types) have built an impressive track record of developing new investment opportunities and adding value to existing investments across the entire life cycle of ICT assets in Africa.

In the latest instalment of African Tech Conversations, the Convergence Partners CEO shares some highlights from his stellar career in finance— which features lengthy stints at firms like Nedbank and Anglo American. He also hints at elements of the “secret sauce” that’s allowed his company to lay claim to the title of “impact investor”, and be widely considered a leading player within Africa’s ICT infrastructure venture capital scene.

Brandon also gives us an update on how well Convergence Partners’ legacy business portfolio is doing— which includes hugely successful investments like SEACOM and Dimension Data, and talks about how he’s planning to invest the $200 million Convergence Partners has managed to woo into its recently-closed Communication Infrastructure Fund.