The Team

Christiaan Brand

CTO, co-founder

Christiaan Brand is CTO at Entersekt. Prior to co-founding the company in 2008, he was involved in a number of large telecommunications projects in South Africa.

Christiaan holds a Master's degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of Stellenbosch (South Africa), an institution at which he has also lectured. He is currently in the final stages of a PhD in computer networks, and his work in this field has been published with some frequency.

Ramzi Mansour

Chairman, non-executive

In 1998, Ramzi Mansour founded a private equity investment firm in Nigeria, successfully leading the company in the fields of telecommunications, power generation, and trading. An avid entrepreneur, he has investments across the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.

He was appointed to Entersekt's board in 2009 and became chairman in 2010. Ramzi holds a Bachelor's degree in political science, specializing in international relations, from Concordia University (Canada).

Nathan Mintah

Non-executive board member

Nathan Mintah's investment banking experience includes M A, corporate and project finance, and advisory, with deal experience in the telecoms, energy, financial services, and resources sectors. He is the chairman (non-executive) of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange's Africa Board Advisory Committee.

Nathan is a former partner at Kingdom Zephyr Africa Management Company, a pan-African private equity fund management company. Prior to this, he served as managing director of the advisor to the $400 million HSBC Kingdom Africa investment joint venture. Before joining HSBC, Nathan was head of ABB Project and Trade Finance (Sub-Saharan Africa) with ABB Asea Brown Boveri. His career in investment banking began at Lehman Brothers and with Morgan Stanley, in New York.

Nathan holds an MBA from Yale University School of Management and a BS in mathematics from Eckerd College (USA).

Schalk Nolte

CEO

Schalk Nolte holds a Bachelor's degree in electronic engineering from the University of Stellenbosch (South Africa). He spent 10 years working for GSM operators in Africa and the Pacific, with a focus on technology and network deployment and on building the teams to get it done.

He joined Entersekt in July 2009 as CEO, bringing with him a wealth of experience and invaluable relationships with mobile operators.

Willem van Biljon

Non-executive board member

Willem van Biljon is the founder, most recently, of Nimbula, a company focused on cloud computing software funded by Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners. He also led the team building Amazon's hugely successful Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2).

In the 1990s, Willem co-founded Mosaic Software, which developed the Postilion payment system, the first high-end payment transaction switch for commodity hardware and operating systems running on Windows. The company became one of the top three international payment processing software vendors in the world. It was sold to S1 Corporation in 2004.

Willem graduated from the University of Cape Town (South Africa) with a degree in computer science. He has held a number of engineering and research positions at LinkData, the Institute for Applied Computer Science, and the National Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences at the CSIR in South Africa.

Andreas von Blottnitz

Non-executive board member

Andreas von Blottnitz represents BV Capital on the boards of Sonos and Appfolio. He is both investor and board member in RightScale and Eucalyptus, and holds similar roles at LogicMonitor (network monitoring) and Lastline (anti-malware provider). Andreas was the president and CEO of Expertcity, which became a leader in web-based remote access. He developed the company's online marketing model, which helped gain over 150,000 customers and led to its acquisition by Citrix.

As president and CEO of AOL in Germany, Andreas managed the European service launch and propelled the company to a $150 million corporation within a few years.

Mark Kacary

VP Sales UK & Europe

Mark Kacary started his career as a pre-sales support engineer for Olivetti before moving into a variety of sales roles.

With almost 30 years' experience, he has worked for both hardware and software manufacturers. For the last 15 years, Mark has focused on the IT security sector, working for companies like Integralis and Dimension Data, as well as serving as UK sales director for Aladdin Knowledge Systems.

Ronald Mayer CA(SA)

HOD Finance

Ronald Mayer has brought a wealth of experience in negotiations and customer relationship management to Entersekt. Prior to joining the company, he worked in lending at Rand Merchant Bank and at Ernst & Young as a chartered accountant and business consultant.

Ronald has an Honors degree in accountancy from the University of Stellenbosch (South Africa) and is a CA(SA).

Niel Müller

Senior Technical Specialist, co-founder

Niel Müller holds a Bachelor's degree (cum laude) in electrical and electronic engineering with computer science from the University of Stellenbosch (South Africa).

In 2006 and 2007, he developed a GPS-based estimator and propagator for a low-earth orbit satellite while still at the university.

Dewald Nolte

VP Business Development, co-founder

Dewald Nolte holds a Bachelor's degree in electrical and electronic engineering with computer science from the University of Stellenbosch (South Africa).

He completed the degree with an internship at the École centrale d'électronique (France). Dewald has been involved in several projects further afield than Entersekt, including the A-Darter missile program for Denel Dynamics.

Gerhard Oosthuizen

CIO

Gerhard Oosthuizen has over 15 years' experience in the software industry, developing and managing software across the globe. He was part of the team that took Mosaic Software's Postilion payment system from a small regional payments switch to the fastest growing global payments processing product. In addition to implementations, he helped establish an international delivery team that serviced regional implementations from Cape Town, South Africa. He also participated in building an Internet and mobile product for community financial institutions in the USA.

More recently, Gerhard gained experience in a corporate IT environment by managing engineering for the largest medical aid administration and managed care provider in South Africa, Metropolitan Health.

Gerhard has an MBA and a Bachelor of Science with Honors from the University of Stellenbosch (South Africa). For fun, he enjoys spending time with his family, cooking and eating good food, and playing squash.

Doug Parr

SVP North America

Doug Parr, an international financial technology expert for more than 25 years, is responsible for providing vision and leadership for developing and implementing Entersekt's software and solutions.

Previously, Doug served as managing director for P4TC, where he was responsible for consulting and contracting executive services for the payments technology sector. He also served as senior vice president and general manager of S1 Corporation, responsible for the US payment division as well as the sales and marketing departments of the company.

Doug earned his bachelor's degree from Clarion University of Pennsylvania and his MBA from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

Francois van Schoor

President Business Development

Francois van Schoor is a member of Entersekt's executive management team and is tasked with directing the company's global expansion from his base in Atlanta, USA.

Francois started his career in the payments industry in the late 1990s when he joined the fledgling Mosaic Software as head of its Africa operations. He later relocated to Australia to establish the Mosaic Software Asia-Pacific division. By the time the company was sold to S1 Corporation in 2004, it had become one of the top three global payments processing software vendors.

After the acquisition, Francois served several executive roles at S1: first, in Singapore, leading the company's Asia-Pacific operations, then at the company's headquarters in Atlanta, managing its non-US payments operations. Finally, he became president of S1's global payments division. During his tenure as president, the payments division grew into a truly global business, with more than 400 corporate clients in 60 countries.

Altus van Tonder

Head of Development, co-founder

Altus van Tonder holds a Bachelor's degree in electrical and electronic engineering with computer science from the University of Stellenbosch (South Africa), completing his final year project during an internship at the École centrale d'électronique (France).