It’s hard to imagine an auditor with a sleeve of tattoos, a Harley-Davidson in the garage, and a Monday-night netball fixture — but that’s Michael Steenkamp. The head of IFRS at RSM South Africa for years and now part of the technical team at Mazars, Michael is...

There is something quietly defiant about Roy Mutooni’s story — a trained economist who ventured into the unforgiving world of South African finance and refused to play the part of the outsider. In a market where pedigree and postcode often dictate altitude, he...

When Letechia Lulema was still a teenager, her late father—a doctor with a larger-than-life personality and the authority of a man who had built his career the hard way—sat her down for one of those defining parent-child conversations at their home in Witbank. He...

When Denga Ramuedzisi returned from the fast-paced world of corporate finance and private equity, he carried with him not only a wealth of professional experience but also a vision. He had already co-founded a small practice back in 2006, initially running it as a...

For Terri Ladbrooke, numbers have never just been about ledgers and balance sheets — they have also marked the most personal milestones of her life. Losing her mother at the tender age of four left a scar that continues to shape how she views family and...

Born in Lenasia, a suburb in the south of Johannesburg, Devi Padayachee’s life was dramatically altered at the age of six when her father, a successful sales manager, fell ill. In an instant, the financial stability the family she had known disappeared. Her mother,...

Lyle Malander was in his late twenties, a high performer at Deloitte in Johannesburg, marked for promotion, respected, compliant. But the suits didn't quite fit - not metaphorically nor literally. There was something stifling in being yet another capable Black...

Cristina Teixeira, the CFO of Spur Corporation, remembers standing on stage presenting company results to a room full of analysts at Sandton Convention Centre when she spotted her mother at the back.  It was a lovely surprise. Although her mother had no...

It was the sort of aspirational daydream most young South Africans might have indulged in at one point or another—except Patricia Stock wasn’t just indulging. She was observing, absorbing, already co-authoring the script of a life that had not yet begun. Prior to...

When Tendani Sikhwivhilu reflects on the high and low points of his career, he finds it difficult to pinpoint them. It’s not that he hasn’t faced challenges or celebrated victories — it’s just that, for him, they are often intertwined. Tendani has always been...