Katlego is the co-founder and CEO at Yoco. Yoco offers an easy way for SMEs to securely accept card payments at the store or on the go, empowering the growth of entrepreneurial businesses. He drives the company’s expansion, customer experience and org design elements as the venture looks to increase card acceptance amongst SMEs. While having lunch in San Francisco at a small eatery that he assumed would not be able to process a card payment, a mobile card reader was presented to him. This encounter planted the seed that led to Yoco’s start. Yoco launched out of beta in October 2015. The venture has acquired over 6 000 merchants, processing a billion rand in annualised transactions. Katlego’s previous work involved venture development at Rocket Internet, setting up Jumia.com in Nigeria, where he met co-founder Bradley Wattrus. The majority of Katlego’s career was in telecoms, media & technology management consulting at Accenture and Delta Partners. Katlego met co-founder, Carl Wazen at Delta Partners. Katlego studied Business Science Information Systems at the University of Cape; this is where he met co-founder Lungisa Matshoba.

As former Head of Sage One International, Steven Cohen oversaw the growth and development of Sage’s cloud-based accounting and payroll solutions in Africa, Australia, Middle East and Asia. Prior to this, Cohen dedicated his 25-year career to Sage Pastel, the innovative business software company he founded with partners Ivan Epstein and Alan Osrin in 1989.During this time, Steven has held several management positions in the company, including financial director, chief operating officer, managing director and Head of Sage One AAMEA.  He has played a central role in the company’s growth from a start-up to a part of the JSE-listed Softline Group, right up to its present incarnation as part of Sage plc, a FTSE 100 company. A charted accountant by qualification, Steven has driven Sage Pastel’s approach to keeping accounting at the cutting edge of technology and turning accounting software into a business management tool.

Roslyn is the Head of Business Development at PayFast and runs the Startups Portfolio on the Silicon Cape Community Council. She has degrees in both Software Development and Financial Analysis, and extensive experience working in and with SMMEs. With combined knowledge of money and tech, she is uniquely positioned to understand, navigate and shape the exploding startup space in South Africa. She presents on e-commerce and entrepreneurship at conferences and workshops around the country, including Wordcamp, Tech4Africa, Sparkup and Seedstars World.

Allon Raiz is regarded both locally and globally as a pioneer and maverick in the business incubation industry. He is the founder and CEO of Raizcorp, the only privately held, unfunded, profitable business incubator on the African continent, currently supporting in excess of 500 businesses. Allon is the author of two bestselling entrepreneurial books – Lose the Business Plan and What to Do When You Want to Give Up. He is the co-founder of the Entrepreneurs’ Organisation South Africa and Rural Roots, and sits on the advisory and judging boards of numerous local and international NGOs and entrepreneurial awards. Allon’s passion and focus on the development of entrepreneurs attracted the attention of the World Economic Forum (WEF) which, on 11 March 2008, awarded Allon as a Young Global Leader. In 2013, Allon received the Entrepreneur of the Year Award at the Oliver Transformation and Empowerment Awards. The following year, he was recognised as the country winner, regional winner and continental winner of the Titan Award for Building Nations.

Mark started his entrepreneurial journey as a student at the University of Cape Town. Having earned just enough money to buy sound equipment he offered DJing services for weddings and birthday parties. With a degree in Information Systems and a passion for web design Mark has since been involved in, and invested in, a few internet based startups. Most notably Mark co-founded WooThemes – the makers of WooCommerce. Their platform now powers over one million online stores around the world. Supported by a completely remote team spanning the globe. In 2015, WooThemes sold to Automattic, the makers of WordPress.com, with a quest to democratise commerce.

Goldstuck is an award-winning writer, analyst and technology commentator. A winner of SA’s Distinguished Service in ICT Award, he is author of 19 books and editor-in-chief of South Africa’s longest-running online consumer technology magazine, Gadget.co.za. His weekly gadgets column is the most widely syndicated technology column in South Africa and he writes a weekly trends column for the Sunday Times. He is founder of World Wide Worx, leading groundbreaking market research, and presents his insights to audiences across the globe.

Graham Mitchell founded GROW as a leading business coaching firm with a team of six coaches who are working with over 85 business each month across South Africa. He is a Gazelles Certified Coach and is the Regional Advocate for Gazelles International Coaches in Sub-Saharan Africa. Before starting GROW, Graham was recognised as the number one coach in South Africa for a global coaching firm. Graham quickly made a name for himself and was recognised as and ranked in their top 50 coaches worldwide. He is now a senior coach within the Gazelles International Coaching Community. He also held the position of Chief Operating Officer for Houses for Africa, a newly formed pan-African housing developer. He was responsible for securing $55 million of funding to establish a large-scale housing project in Lusaka, Zambia and for expanding the company’s operations into Abuja, Nigeria.

Louw Barnardt CA (SA) is the co-founder and managing director of Outsourced CFO, a multi award-winning financial consultancy that specialises in CFO and cloud accounting services for scaling tech and innovation companies. A voice for entrepreneurship and finance, Louw drives multiple conversations around the use of technology, raising of capital and scaling up of business ventures across multiple platforms. The current Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year, a top 35 under 35 Chartered Accountant and a young business leader in South Africa, Louw speaks, writes, records and promotes entrepreneurship as a catalyst for social change while championing one of the most exciting scale-up companies in the finance industry today.

Nic is the founder of the popular style company, NicHarry.com. Nic was the CEO and co-founder of Motribe, the mobile community platform, before the company was successfully acquired in 2012. He also founded ForeFront Africa consulting firm before selling the business to Imperial Holdings. His entrepreneurial career proudly includes at least 10 failed startups. Nic started his first business at 16 and recently published his business biography: DO. FAIL. LEARN. REPEAT. Nic is also a columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine. Nic has put his time in at some of the largest media and telco companies in Africa including Mail & Guardian, Financial Mail, 702 and Vodacom.

Phumi champions a new way of brand building, where the community takes the centre-stage. She has worked on various brands including King Korn of Tiger Brands. Since inception Ignitive has led successful campaigns for the likes of Tshwane Open, AFCON and Albany. She started her advertising career at Net#work BBDO as a TV producer and started her own production company, Blender. Phumi joined TBWAHuntLascaris as Talent Development Manager focussing on transformation of the agency. Phumi hosts Womandla show on online radio station CliffCentral.com and is executive producer of the documentary series South Africa’s Promise.

As the first black South African to receive an Masters in Business Administration from the prestigious Stanford University in the USA, dynamic business woman and entrepreneur Zipho Sikhakhane is all about breaking barriers. Emerging from humble beginnings of growing up in a poor community in South Africa, she was driven to start her first business at the tender age of five, and has led numerous business ventures ever since. She holds a Business Science Honours Degree from UCT and has completed leadership courses in Austria, China, Czech Republic, Russia, USA.  She has held strategic positions in world-leading organisations locally and internationally (such as the world’s biggest fashion retail group Inditex Zara & the world’s biggest management consulting firm).

Beauty has over 19 years of ICT industry experience. Currently responsible for leading the Mobile, Telkom ISP network and IT service delivery technical teams. Responsible to the Telkom Mobile network strategy, architecture, planning and deployment.