Board Of Directors

Cornelius is a chartered accountant with nearly 40 years post qualification experience. He was a partner at PWC from 1987 to 1996, initially as audit partner of mainly JSE listed companies and later as corporate finance partner involved in mergers and acquisitions, JSE and Nasdaq listings, capital raisings, project finance and due diligence projects. Cornelius has had experience in CEO and executive director roles of both JSE listed and private companies. He has also served as an independent non-executive director and Chairman of the Board of JSE listed and Nasdaq listed companies, as well as private companies.

Kobus joined Premier in 2011 with more than 20 years’ experience in the financial industry. Prior to joining Premier, Kobus spent 6 years in the investment team at Brait and 7 years in restructuring, turnaround and consulting in the USA.

Fritz has 17 years' experience in senior financial roles across various industries including manufacturing and agri-processing. Prior to joining Premier, Fritz spent 6 years as the Chief Financial Officer of Country Bird Holdings and the Commercial Director at RCL for Rainbow Chickens and Epol Feeds. Fritz leads the finance, IT, legal, business intelligence, procurement, and logistics functions at Premier.

Rolf is currently a partner in the Large Equity Fund team at Ethos Private Equity. Rolf joined Brait in September 2003 where his responsibilities included managing investments in tourism, consumer products and outsourcing in listed and unlisted entities. Rolf joined Ethos in 2020 when Brait appointed Ethos as its investment adviser. Rolf is currently a non-executive director of companies within Premier Group, Vertice Medtech Holdings Group and Echotel Group. Rolf previously worked at Insinger de Beaufort corporate finance in London, after qualifying as a CA at Deloitte in Johannesburg.

Jonathan has over 16 years private equity and corporate finance experience, gained at Ethos, Actis, The Standard Bank of South Africa Limited and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein in London. He has been involved in a number of different businesses in South Africa and on the rest of the African continent, across a range of sectors, including consumer, logistics, financial services and industrials. Jonathan sits on the Ethos Executive Committee and is the Managing Partner of the Ethos Africa business and also has responsibilities in the Ethos Large Equity Fund.

Harish is an experienced business executive with 33 years of experience in auditing and as an Assurance partner for listed, multinational and privately owned entities. He managed the PwC Assurance practice in KZN for 8 years with a successful record of driving business development, growing the PwC (KZN) practice year on year, across a variety of different industry sectors and managing a team of over 300 partners and staff. The Assurance division included external audit, risk advisory services, IT audit, finance and accounting and tax compliance. Harish has industry experience in FMCG, private healthcare, automotive, freight and logistics and complex manufacturing entities. He was appointed a member of the PwC Africa Assurance Exco and the PwC Africa Assurance Strategic Committee. He also served on the PwC Southern Africa Governing Board. Harish is a member of the SAICA National Council and the Eastern Region.

Wandile is the Chief Economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa (Agbiz) and the author of “Finding Common Ground: Land, Equity, and Agriculture”. He is a Senior Lecturer Extraordinary at the Department of Agricultural Economics at Stellenbosch University and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Wits School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand. Wandile was appointed as a member of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Presidential Economic Advisory Council in 2019, having served on the Presidential Expert Advisory Panel on Land Reform and Agriculture from 2018. He is also a member of the Council of Statistics of South Africa (Stats SA) and a Commissioner at the International Trade Administration Commission of South Africa (ITAC). Wandile is also a Trustee at Stellenbosch Trust, and a board member at the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy (BFAP), Grabouw Development Agency, and Seriti Institute. Wandile is a columnist for Business Day, The Herald and Farmers Weekly magazine.

Iaan is a commercial lawyer by training and has more than 20 years’ relevant experience (specifically in banking, mergers and acquisition, finance, corporate law and regulatory matters). He practiced as an attorney, notary and conveyancer for a number of years post qualification, whereafter he joined Arthur Andersen in 1999. He remained with KPMG for 5 years after its merger with Arthur Anderson, advising many JSE Top-40 and multi-national clients and headed up the Johannesburg Corporate Tax business until his resignation in 2007. Iaan then joined Rand Merchant Bank’s Corporate Finance division as a senior executive. As part of the team, Iaan originated, structured and executed several landmark merger and acquisition transactions. Iaan was appointed as an Investment Banking Director at RMB in 2015 and served in that capacity until his resignation in 2019. During this time, Iaan advised clients across a wide range of industries. He has deep technical skills and understands the governance, regulatory and statutory environment in which listed companies operate.

Faith has been serving on the Boards of publicly (JSE) listed, private companies, SME's and not-for-profit companies over the past 20 years in the following sectors - financial services (insurance, corporate and investment banking), mining and energy, business services, property (REIT), manufacturing, retail and education. She has also served on the following board sub-committees - Audit & Risk, Social & Ethics, Remuneration & Nominations and Investment committees. Faith is currently a Non-executive Director of JSE-listed Discovery Limited, Bidvest Limited and the JSE Limited. She is also the Chair of the WDB Growth Fund (an impact private equity fund that supports the growth of black and black women owned SME's) and a member of the Gender Based Violence Fund, a not-for-profit fund formed by the private sector, with support from the South African President, to raise funds to fight the gender-based violence scourge in South Africa.