Chairman – Non-Executive Director

Alex Darko is currently a Director at Nkululeko Leadership Consulting- a consulting firm specialising in organisational culture, leadership, change management, and strategy. As a management consultant, Alex has assisted a number of organisations and leaders (public and private) to successfully develop and implement strategies, improve leadership and organisational effectiveness, manage change and transform their organisational cultures. He mentors leaders and teams, both locally and internationally.

Alex has extensive global multi-industry experience in Europe, the USA, and Africa. He held a number of senior management positions at the Dun & Bradstreet Corporation (while based in the UK), including Director of UK Shared Services, Director of Finance – Dun & Bradstreet Europe Ltd, and Head of European Accounting Re-engineering. At Dun & Bradstreet, Alex established high-performance teams and led significant organisational change initiatives in the UK and Europe which resulted in significant cost savings and major improvement in service levels.

Alex served as the Head of Knowledge and Information (CIO) at AngloGold Ashanti.

Chief Executif Officier

Didier Duc is an Executive Director at Absolute Owl (Pty) Ltd (wholesale), Alparq South Africa (Pty) Ltd (manufacture), J-Bay Zebra Lodge (Pty) Ltd (hospitality) as well as for the 3Rivers Trails (tourism activities) which is a non-profit company. 

Before that, Didier has been working for the Swiss government and the United Nations, specializing in anti-terrorism and threat and risk assessment, conducting different missions for the High Commissioner for Human Rights and UNFCC, in Africa and Eastern Europe. Over the years, Didier has developed extensive experience in project management, turning ideas into success. Didier also gains experience in engineering and construction in his early days.

Non-Executive Director

Dr Karsten Wellner has extensive international top-management and M&A expertise with global health care and retail players. He founded, built, and listed a South African integrated health and care company with >4500 employees in >110 countries from 2011 to 2018. 

Karsten has a strong focus on growth and financial steering of enterprises. He is experienced in the corporate world and entrepreneurial at the same time. Know-how in supply chain and large investment projects, export, M&A, Investor Relations, restructuring, and strategic leadership. Creative marketing strategies, non-executive board work with wide network globally and in South Africa. 

Non-Executive Director

Olivier Waridel has spent his career working in innovative healthcare environments. He served as CEO of Biosafe Group Geneva Area, Switzerland from April 2012 to July 2016, a company active in lab automation for stem cells, regenerative medicine & immunotherapy. Olivier worked with Biosafe for a total of 15 years, helping grow the company from four to 100 employees, expand into five locations in Europe, America, and Asia, and led to a successful acquisition of the company by GE Healthcare in 2016.

Non-Executive Director

Ronald Pfende has over 20 years of financial services expertise. He has a deep understanding of operating on the African continent having lived and worked in six countries and leading regional African businesses.

He is the CFO of d.light Design Inc, a Silicon Valley start-up that designs, manufactures and sells a solar home system to the bottom of the pyramid clients using PayGO technology. His previous roles include Managing Director: Southern Africa for Stanlib a pan African asset management company with $42Bn assets under management and COO of BancABC (part of Atlas Mara) a SADC based regional bank operating in 5 countries. Prior to BanABC he spent 10 years at Standard Bank Group (Africa’s largest bank) in various executive roles largely focused on growing the bank’s footprint on the African continent.

Through his experience, he has gained extensive knowledge of entering new markets, scaling business on the African continent, mergers, acquisition, dealing with regulatory agencies and a diversity of cultures.

Ronald is a Chartered Accountant and holds a Master of Business Leadership and Bachelor in Accounting Science from the University of South Africa.

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Non-Executive Director

David Janks is currently practising as a consultant with the Cape Town boutique law firm Bernadt Vukic Potash and Getz since 2016.

David worked for the JSE-listed Clicks group of companies as Head Legal from 2009 to 2016. During his time with the Clicks group, he was responsible for the legal aspects of all its healthcare matters, with a special emphasis on the Pharmacy Act and the Medicines Act and their respective regulations.

David advised the Clicks Group management team and liaised on behalf of the Clicks Group with the Medicines Control Council, which later became SAHPRA, the South African Pharmacy Council and other health bodies.

During this employment, David managed for the Clicks Group, all of its corporate actions from a legal perspective, and advised on litigation and developed litigation strategy. In addition, David was in charge and responsible for the secretarial and corporate governance functions of the Clicks Group, was responsible for JSE compliance and compliance with JSE regulations, attending all board meetings and board sub-committees.

Before David joined Clicks Group in 2009, David practised as a lawyer in Johannesburg for over 30 years. During this period, David has gained experience in all aspects of commercial transactions and contracts, including mergers and acquisitions, certain tax structuring for acquisitions and divestitures, litigation, liquidations, arrangements, matters insolvency, health law and trust law.

After being admitted as a barrister, David became a partner, for over 20 years until 2004, of the Johannesburg law firm Sloot Broido. From 2004 to 2009, David was a director of the law firm Routledge Modise in association with Eversheds, where he practised in the firm’s commercial department and headed the firm’s health law department.

In addition to the above, David is a trustee of a major charitable trust.