People

People are critical to the success of businesses.

We have a diverse, passionate team that believes in the potential Africa offers and has the skills and experience to contribute to the realisation of that potential.

Executive Management Team

Gavin Tipper

Chief Executive Officer

Gavin is a seasoned business leader with over 30 years’ experience in the investment and financial services sectors. His career commenced at KPMG where he was a technical partner. He spent an extended period at Coronation Holdings Limited as Chief Operating Officer and has chaired the boards of several prominent companies. He has been associated with Arise for several years as the chair of the asset management committee.

Karien Strydom

Chief Financial Risk Officer

Karien is a corporate finance professional with over 18 years’ experience in the financial services sector. She has led and advised on a wide range of high profile transactions in South Africa and broader Africa. Her experience spans across all aspects of corporate finance advisory (buy-side and sell-side transactions, restructures, listings, and empowerment transactions). Additionally, she acted as strategic corporate development advisor to the FirstRand Group during her time at Rand Merchant Bank (RMB).

Prior to joining Arise, Karien was the Head of Financial Institutions Group Corporate Finance at RMB where she led advisory mandates across banking, insurance, and asset management. She was also a member of the RMB Institutional Client Group (ICG) executive team where she supported the broader ICG franchise to develop and drive the client-led strategy across all institutional clients (financial institutions) in South Africa and broader Africa. Karien is a CFA charterholder and a qualified chartered accountant.

Esther van As

Company Secretary

With over two decades of expertise as a corporate legal specialist and a trusted advisor, Esther brings a wealth of experience to her role. Before joining Arise in 2018 as Company Secretary, she garnered valuable experience working with international law firms. Esther holds master’s degrees in notarial law and tax law from Leiden University, complemented by postgraduate training at the prestigious Grotius Academie.

Investment Team

Gerrit Muller

Senior Investment Director

Gerrit has over 21 years’ experience in the industry, twelve of which were focused on African private equity. Before joining Arise, he was a member of Norfund’s financial institutions department for seven years and sat on the advisory boards of a number of private equity funds. Before Norfund, he was an executive at RMB Corvest, a private equity company in the FirstRand Group. He started his career at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Transactions, where he performed various due diligence and valuation assignments. Gerrit is a Chartered Accountant and holds a Bachelors and an Honours degree in Commerce and Accounting from the University of Pretoria.

Johann van Eeden

Investment Director

Johann has more than 13 years experience across corporate development, strategy, and economic consulting. Prior to joining Arise he spent five and a half years with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in their Johannesburg office. At BCG he led strategy projects in the banking and insurance sectors as well as corporate development projects (due diligence, investment strategy etc.) across industries. Before joining BCG, Johann managed M&A for Internet Solutions, a division of global ICT company, Dimension Data. He previously held a similar corporate development/M&A role with the Dimension Data MEA Group. He started out his career as a competition economist where he represented a range of corporate clients (primarily focused on corporate telecoms & technology companies) in competition matters (incl. M&A transactions) as a competition economist. Johann is a CFA charter holder. He holds an MBA with distinction from the University of Oxford, Masters (Law & Economics) from the European Masters in Law & Economics (EMLE) programme and an Mcomm (Economics) cum laude from Stellenbosch University.

Andani Madzena

Investment Manager

Andani joined Arise in 2019 as an investment trainee, directly from university. She holds an Honours Degree in Financial Markets from the University of Fort Hare.

Ariane Scheepers

Senior Investment Associate

Ariane joined Arise in 2022 as an Investment Analyst and has since gained valuable experience in investment management as a Senior Investment Associate. She is passionate about analysing investments and finding creative solutions that generate meaningful impact and long-term value. Prior to joining Arise, Ariane worked as an analyst in the insurance industry. She holds a BCom Honours degree in Financial Economics from Stellenbosch University.

Tholoana Makhetha

Investment Associate

Tholoana has a strong background in financial services, advisory, and corporate finance. She began her career at EY, completing her articles before joining the EY Parthenon Transaction Strategy and Execution team, and later advancing to the Corporate Finance Valuations division. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce and a Postgraduate Diploma in Accounting (PGDA) from the University of Cape Town.

Value Creation Team

Carla Bester

Director of Risk

Carla is a Certified Financial Risk Manager (FRM GARP) and a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS). She boasts extensive banking and consulting experience across risk management disciplines that include governance, compliance, and operational, liquidity, market, treasury and credit risk. Prior to joining Arise she was a Senior Manager: Financial Services Risk and Regulation at PwC South Africa. Having held management positions at Standard Bank and Absa, she brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the team. She holds a Master of Commerce degree from the University of Johannesburg, an Operational Risk Manager Certificate from the Professional Risk Managers International Association (PRMIA), a Certificate in Financial Engineering and Risk Management from the University of Columbia, and a Bachelors and an Honours degree in Commerce (Economics) from Stellenbosch University.

Zahir Essop

Senior Manager: Banking & Innovation

Zahir is an IT and innovation specialist with more than 18 years’ experience. He began his career as a developer on e-business and workforce management systems in the telecommunications sector. Subsequently, he held several roles at Nedbank culminating as the Senior Innovation Strategist in the Retail and Commercial Banking business. During his tenure at Nedbank, he led several innovation initiatives and played an instrumental role in implementing Nedbank’s investments in Ecobank and Banco Único. In addition, he was tasked with the development, operationalisation and management of the post-acquisition programmes for both the Ecobank and Banco Único investments. Zahir holds a Bachelors and an Honours degree in Computer Science, and an MBA from the University of the Witwatersrand.

Simba Dumbura

Risk Manager

Simba has a comprehensive banking background across retail and commercial, SME and corporate segments, with experience spanning transactional banking, operations, strategy, risk, and data consulting. He specialises in risk management and governance across multiple banking risk types. He holds a BSc(Hons) Applied Biology & Biochemistry (NUST, ZWE), MSc Strategic Management (CUT, ZWE) and PRM (Professional Risk Manager) charter from the Professional Risk Managers Association (PRMIA).

Elan Theeboom

Environmental, Social and Governance Specialist

Elan is an ESG specialist with 19 years’ corporate experience. His focus is on enhancing portfolio value across the ‘three capitals’ – financial, social and natural. Prior to joining Arise, Elan worked at an international consultancy, based out of London and Cape Town, where he advised organisations that included listed corporates, various arms of the United Nations, multilateral financial institutions, international private equity firms and other financial institutions. Elan is a Chartered Environmentalist (UK) and a registered professional environmental scientist (South Africa).

Support Team

Zeenat
Parker

Head of Communications

Ton
de Bruin

Finance and Administration Manager

Emile
Oosthuizen

Financial Controller