Ferdie Pieterse Biography

Ferdie was appointed as Experian Africa CEO in March 2020 and comes with extensive pan-African experience as an emerging markets executive in numerous C-Suite roles within the financial services sector. Ferdie’s career in the industry began in auditing before moving into financial management and operations in some of our biggest banks. Ferdie is a qualified Chartered Accountant and Certified Information Systems Auditor who holds an Honours Degree in Accounting from the University of South Africa and Post Graduate Diploma in Advanced Banking (cum laude). As a resident student, he attended the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School where he completed the Leading Across Boundaries Executive Programme.

Jaco van Jaarsveldt Biography

Jaco has spent most of his career in the Credit Industry where he held various C-suite roles in listed, non-listed and private equity-owned entities. He has experience in banking, retail, insurance and consulting across all product verticals both locally and internationally. In a career of more than 25 years, Jaco gained extensive experience working in various industries including banking, retail, and insurance across multiple geographies including Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Throughout his career his passion has been driving organisational value through an absolute focus on the customer and customer experience enhancing strategies, making extensive use of big data and advanced analytics to achieve the desired outcomes. In his current role at Experian as Chief Decision Analytics and Innovation Officer, Jaco gets to hone in on his passion of using big data and advanced analytics to deliver customer experience-enhancing strategies.

Thabo Hermanus Biography

Thabo Hermanus, Chief – Credit & Bureau Services for Experian Africa, is responsible for the company’s Africa CX Agenda, which drives their customer centricity, a cornerstone of any ambitious business’s growth. He is not new to Experian, having previously joined the South African business in 2002 as Head of Finance. On leaving Experian in 2007, Thabo co-founded Nimble Collections Services, one of the leading participants in the Sub-Saharan African market with operations in South Africa, Botswana and Namibia. After five years, Thabo joined Standard Bank as the Head of Customer Collections and Payments Strategies, and later a role in Regulatory Advocacy. Thabo moved back into the credit bureau environment when he joined Compuscan in 2017 as Managing Director for South Africa.

Currently, as Chief – Credit & Bureau Services for Experian Africa, Thabo manages the Consumer and Business bureau divisions including Product and Commercial Strategy for the Africa business together with the operational customer support functions. Thabo is an Accounts and Economics major, having obtained a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Cape Town. He is married with two daughters and invests most of his spare time in building close relationships with them.

Estelle Ackerman Biography

Estelle Ackerman moved into the Head of Analytics role at Experian after four years as a Global Consultant where she helped clients to harness the power of Experian’s solutions across data, analytics, and software to empower them to meet their strategic objectives in an ever-changing landscape. Coming from an economic background, she gained over 10 years of working experience in the Retail Banking industry which helped her build a strong analytics and credit strategy background across the customer’s credit lifecycle. It is her passion to use her experience and skills to make a positive impact and to stay authentic doing it.

Razia Cleland Biography

Experian South Africa’s global consultant, Razia Cleland, has over 15 years’ experience in the financial services industry, across insurance, retail banking, credit and scoring analytics, and collections. She has an actuarial science and statistics background and uses these skills to build a strong technical base in modelling, scoring and data analytics, and consulting. Her key focus areas within financial services are collections and risk management, and finding novel solutions to clients’ problems across the customer life cycle.

Wilnes Goosen Biography

I am known as Wilnes and I’m currently working as the Identity and Fraud consultant for Experian SA within the Decision analytics space. I have over 7 years of experience within VAF, Banking, Telco, and online space. I have a keen eye for risk management and due diligence. I have developed the skills to identify current and potential threats within the Fraud business and Finance Sector and advise as well as assisting in implementing strategies, cloud solutions and rules to prevent potential threats. I strive to be as effective as possible as well as maintaining effective TAT for business to provide the best customer service as possible.

Vusi January Biography

Vusi January is the Decision Analytics Manager for Experian Africa. His main objective in analytics is to optimize opportunities for the Financial Services industry across the credit lifecycle to improve business strategy, profitability, risk identification and mitigation, innovation, optimization, consumer acquisition, retention and growth across multiple different businesses spanning across banking and retail in South Africa. To attain this objective, Vusi combines his 18 years of end-to-end credit risk experience with Experian Product and Model Suite which is designed for the financial services. His expertise covers a broad spectrum of strategic analytics including late-stage collection strategies, write-off modelling, IFRS9 provision modelling, account management strategies and origination as well as scorecard development – with recent focus on Early Warning Scorecards. He is a passionate and committed leader with an exceptional track record in the identification of key talent while thoroughly enjoying harnessing, growing and developing people to grow to their full potential.

Karen Gischen Biography

Karen is a Product Manager at Experian South Africa and is responsible for the Business bureau products with touchpoints into the consumer side of the business. Karen started her career at KreditInform which was one of the biggest commercial bureaus in the country at the time. Experian acquired KreditInform in 2009 and she has fulfilled a multitude of roles ranging from Researcher, Account Manager assistant and Support Manager for the Tier 1 Banks, Unsecured Lending Financial Institutions, Telco’s, and Retailers. Her current role is in Product Manager for Business Information Services.

Ayanda Kotobe Biography

Ayanda Kotobe is a seasoned finance professional with a wealth of experience in auditing and financial management. A proud Chartered Accountant (CA(SA)), Ayanda earned her BCom Accounting Honours from the University of Johannesburg in 2009 and qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 2012. She began her career at Deloitte and Touche, where she honed her skills as an Audit Senior and later as an Audit Manager, including an enriching period working with Deloitte LLP in New York City In 2015, Ayanda transitioned to Barloworld Equipment, where she served as Financial Manager for nearly three years. Her exemplary performance led to her promotion as the Country Financial Director of Barloworld Equipment in Botswana, where she managed the full financial operations and led the finance team. In 2019, Ayanda returned to South Africa to take on the role of Finance Director at RS South Africa, where she currently oversees the Finance and Corporate Services functions, driving strategic financial initiatives.

Ans Gerber Biography

A data scientist in the Innovation team of Experian, Ans has experience in Analytics across various disciplines. In her current role, she is part of a dynamic team that continues to push the boundaries of what is deemed ‘typical’ bureau activities, by finding and creating new data sets, building new products and creating value propositions that address industry needs and also help to build an inclusive credit economy for Africa, by empowering consumers.

Mark Wells Biography

Mark joined Experian in February 2015. Prior to that, he spent 20 years in the Information Technology sector running high performing sales teams. As Chief Customer Officer for Experian Africa, his current role involves leading the customer-facing integrated sales teams that engage with clients across all industries in South Africa. Mark holds a BComm (Hons) degree from the University of  the Witwatersrand, an MBA from the University of Cape Town, and post-graduate executive qualifications from Columbia University in New York and Harvard Business School in Boston.