Our Team

Babalwa Ngonyama

Executive Director, CEO and Shareholder

With experience spanning more than two decades, Sinayo Securities founder and CEO Babalwa Ngonyama enjoys an illustrious career in the financial services sector. Having established a thriving financial services company, Ngonyama is considered an industry maven who continues to make major waves in the corporate sector. The acclaimed CEO is also the initial founding chairperson of the African Women Chartered Accountants (AWCA), an organisation whose key aim is to accelerate the development of black female Chartered Accountants.

Be it a corporate, entrepreneurial, philanthropic, or board role, there is no career hat Ngonyama doesn’t wear without aplomb. Ngonyama has occupied diverse leadership roles — as a lead independent director and chairperson of various committees — with South African entities at various stages of their lifecycles. She has a special knack for leading organisations with global operations in the most challenging jurisdictions. As a board member, she has been instrumental in driving operational performance in alignment with overall business growth objectives to achieve financial returns for shareholders.

In addition to leading Sinayo, Babalwa is a board member of Hollard Life, Hollard Insurance, Kagiso Tiso Holdings, and Vukile Properties. She is the audit committee chair of the latter two organisations. She was also a board member and the committee chair of Aspen and a lead independent director at Implats Ltd. Babalwa was previously an audit partner at Deloitte’s Financial Institutions, Safika Holdings Group CFO, and Chief Internal Auditor at Nedbank Ltd.

She also served as the Chairperson at the University of Cape Town Council.

Ngonyama leads several passion projects — most notably the company graduate training program dubbed ‘Project Funda’. This program, which she is particularly passionate about assists young graduates in the financial services sector by equipping them with the necessary knowledge and skills required for future employment. “We accelerate their employment prospects by providing mentorship and guidance,” says Ngonyama. To date, Project Funda has assisted more than 80 graduates to secure direct industry exposure, either with Sinayo Securities and/or its clients.

Bernadette Johnson

Executive Director, Stockbroker and Compliance Officer

Bernadette boasts 30 years’ experience and was the GM, CO and Stockbroker in charge at Arqaam Capital SA, a Dubai-based investment bank with key markets across EUA, SSA and North Africa. Prior to joining Sinayo, she was previously Stockbroker and Compliance Officer at Constant Capital and Head of Compliance at Independent Securities and De Fay Fund Management.

Khumo Shongwe

Non-Executive Chairperson

Khumo Portia Shongwe has occupied executive roles since 2003. In 2003, she was appointed the Head of Transformation at De Beers Consolidated Mines (“DBCM”) and was invited to join the Lonmin Plc, South Arica Operations in 2005 as Vice President, Human Capital. She later joined Royal Bafokeng Holdings, initially as the Senior Advisor and later promoted to Executive Director and a member of the Board. She is currently a businesswoman, invested in hospitality and financial services. She sits on boards as an independent non-executive, teaches at business schools, and is intricately involved in her own business operations.

Her passion lies in human development, particularly in education, leadership development, and is drawn to companies whose values include developing their talent and communities in which they operate. She is also registered as a clinical psychologist with the Health Professional Council of South Africa (“HPCSA”) and a fellow of the Africa Leadership Initiative (“ALI”), an affiliate of the Aspen Institute in Colorado, USA, and member of the Institute of Directors SA (“IoD”).

Ian Louw

Senior Equities Trader

Ian previously headed the trading desk at ABN AMRO, Kagiso Securities and BPI Capital Africa. He started his equities trading career in 1988 and has vast experience in both local and African markets.

John Swinney

Senior Equities Trader

John kick-started his career at Martin & Co, where after he was Head of Trading at Coronation Equities and RMB. He currently has over 26 years of equities trading experience.

Meshack Mokobane

Senior Equities Trader

A former senior trader at Vunani Securities and Constant Capital, Meshack has 19 years’ equities trading experience. Previously, he worked for T-Sec, Legae Securities and Sanlam Capital. He is also a former Mathematics lecturer at South West Gauteng TVET College in Roodepoort, Johannesburg.

Tracey Henry

Settlement Officer

Tracey is an accredited Settlement Officer and Compliance Officer with 29 years’ experience in the SA stock market. Prior to joining Sinayo Securities, she spent 4 years at Sygnia Securities as a Compliance Officer and also worked in Prime Broking at Cadiz FSG and Deutsche Bank. She began her career at the JSE’s Surveillance Department in 1991.

Oliver Bowyer

Head of Strategy and Business Development

Oliver started his career with JP Morgan in London, where he focused on the growth of the South African business from a global perspective. He has worked in client management as well as specialist sales roles for South Africa, over which time the company attained the #1 market share on the JSE. Oliver took various SA CEOs on international (USA/UK roadshows) to introduce them to investors and hosted SA politicians on similar roadshows as they promoted the country as an attractive foreign investment destination.

After 12 years working for JPMorgan, Oliver was offered an attractive proposition by Investec to grow their business in the United States relocating to their New York office. He successfully did this, with limited resources, introducing the bank to US investors whilst building good relations with the SA embassy and stakeholders promoting SA investment to US investors.

Oliver’s functional capabilities include business strategy, corporate access, sales, business development, developing and implementing growth strategies, establishing new businesses, and internationalizing South African businesses.

Jacques Pretorius

Head of Research, ESG, and Quantitative Research & KI

Jacques holds a B.Com Honors in Investment Management and M.Com in Business Management. He completed the CFA / ESG Investment certificate. He has spent 30 years in financial markets as a trader, analyst, fund manager, and chief investment officer. He is experienced in trading equity, fixed interest, forex, convertible bonds, and derivatives. As an analyst, he won the Financial Mail Analyst of the year award in Quantitative research, in 1998. While at Stanlib Asset Management as head of quantitative research and investments, he won the Symmetry award for the best market-neutral hedge fund in 2004.

He joined T-Capital as head of hedge funds in 2005 and the long-short hedge fund he launched in 2007/8 won the Hedge Fund Intelligence award for the best new fund of the year in 2008. He later joined Consilium Capital and became Chief Investment Officer, managing a diverse investment team. Funds under management included: The Consilium World Wide Flexible Unit Trust Fund, the local Flexible Unit Trust Fund, and the segregated Reg.28 funds. He was awarded the IMBASA Yegolide Award for the best-balanced fund manager in 2016. Jacques specialises in producing quantitative research, trading ideas, and bespoke research. Jacques will also take charge of Sinayo’s ESG offering as this is a key area of differentiation for Sinayo Securities going forward.

Amanda Baloyi

Trainee Financial Analyst and Accredited Assessor and Facilitator

Amanda is a Founder, Business Manager, and an aspiring Charted Financial Analyst.

Amanda has worked in the Property Department of Standard Bank. She has trained numerous individuals on leadership, entrepreneurship, speaking, facilitation, and coaching. She has developed leadership development programmes for various companies such as Coca-Cola and DSM Pharmaceuticals and has worked with the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) to train entrepreneurs in business development, marketing and customer acquisition.
Amanda has developed the Financial Game-Changer Course for Business Owners hosted by Leadership2020 and has hosted shows on Massive Metro and HomeGrown Radio on Financial Wellness and Wealth Creation.

Brenda Mfazi

Executive Assistant

Brenda Mfazi has 15 yrs. experience as Professional Executive Assistant. She was employed at Constant Capital, Black Business Council, and Sinayo as a Receptionist. Office Manager, and PA to the CEO. Her duties included diary management, meetings, event planning travel arrangements, and liaison between directors, clients, and suppliers. She is also the marketing assistant to the Stockbroker in control.