Our People

BCom Honours (Information Systems) Cum Laude

Andrew joined Infovest in September 2011 as an Implementation Consultant.

He is a recent Honours graduate from Rhodes University and was placed on the Dean’s List in his final year. Andrew started working as a Business Analyst at Derivco in Durban in February 2011 before relocating to Cape Town and joining to Infovest team.

Andrew aspires to soon complete an MCTS and ultimately MCITP certification in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 in order to become a Microsoft SQL expert.

Special interests:

• Principles of Data Warehousing
• Human Computer Interaction and Application Usability
• Building and maintaining robust Data Workflows
• New Technologies within IT
• Music (Guitar and Piano).

BSc Hons (Computer Science) Cum Laude

Jenny joined Infovest in July 2011 and has 18 years of experience in the investment industry. She is a senior consultant and gives input and guidance with regards to product direction, new prospects, consulting, implementations, support and helps with the general running of the office.

She started her career in the investment industry when she joined Syfrets Managed Assets in 1993 and then spent some time at Coronation Asset Management. Jenny joined SmacSoft in 1996 (which later became AFA Systems) where she ended up managing the back office systems development teams. In 2004 Jenny joined Kizen and consulted at Investec Asset Management on a project to implement a central data warehouse. This is where she met Tarquin, Lionel and Riaan. When StatPro acquired Kizen in 2006 Jenny’s focus shifted to compliance.

Prior to joining Infovest, Jenny was the Compliance Product Manager at StatPro where she managed the compliance team with regards to development, consulting projects, new implementations, pre-sales support (global and local) and training. Jenny has had extensive exposure to various systems and their data requirements within the financial industry, including back office accounting systems, front office order management systems, data warehouses, data inflows and outflows, reporting and compliance.

Special interests:

• Consulting with clients in the financial markets space to advise on best practice and improving their existing business processes
• Empowering and training users to get the most out of their systems and increase their efficiencies
• Building highly effective and motivated teams
• Building trusting and long term client relationships.

National Diploma in I.T.

Joe joined Infovest in July 2011 as a senior developer in the technical team and he has 9 years of experience in the investment industry.

Joe started his software development career working at Denel while still studying. He spent time in London developing legal software, and moved back to Cape Town in 2000 where he spent 18 months on the Microsoft Development Team at Engen, focusing on SQL Server development work. In 2002 Joe headed back to London where he spent 18 months as a developer at Rand Merchant Bank International where he focused on developing in-house data applications, including office automation, report generation and managing data integration. In 2004 Joe joined Trafigura where he was responsible for the development and maintenance of their in-house Oil and Metal Concentrates trading systems, focussing specifically on metals trading. He made his way back to Cape Town once more in 2010, and embarked on his dream of setting up his own e-commerce venture before he joined Infovest.

Special interests:

• User-interface design
• Automating and optimising business processes through software that cuts out unnecessary manual work
• Translating business requirements into actual solutions.

BComm Hons (Financial Risk Management)

Johan joined Infovest in 2010 as a Business Analyst and Implementation Consultant and he has 2 years of experience in the investment industry and is our Microsoft SQL expert. Johan is involved in most new implementations, and he provides ongoing consulting to our existing clients for enhancements and new requirements across all our products (e.g. data workflows, optimising and enhancing data dependencies, enquiries, reporting and dashboards). Johan is always willing to share his knowledge and experience with our products with the new members of the team.

Johan graduated with his BCom Honours degree in 2009 and he is currently studying towards his Masters in Financial Risk Management. Johan has also embarked on studying towards his CFA. He interned at Cadiz during 2009 where he performed research on Africa as an investment environment and was involved in the development of an Excel application which allowed investors to input data and to determine performance fees.

Special interests:

• Maths and Stats
• Risk Management
• Efficient and robust workflow management.

MBusSci (Information Systems); BBusSci Honours; BCom (Financial Analysis and Portfolio Management)

Lionel is a founding partner of Infovest and has over 10 years of experience in the investment data world. He is involved in all aspects of the business and focuses on new sales prospects, consulting and implementations. Lionel is actively involved in pursuing new business opportunities within the Australian market and continually gives his input with regards to product strategy.

Lionel has previously worked at Schroders where he dealt extensively with investment data. Prior to founding Infovest in 2005, he fulfilled the role of Data Architect at Investec Asset Management where he was responsible for the overall systems architecture and assisted with the process of implementing a central data warehouse for both the Cape Town and London offices. It was while he was at Investec that Lionel met up with Tarquin, Riaan, Robin and Jenny.

Special interests:

• Strategic consulting within the Asset Management industry, with a focus on systems architecture.
• Helping investment managers achieve tangible benefits from their data.
• Understanding what makes users tick.
• Maintaining a high-level view of the investment industry and exploring how we can continually add value.
• Understanding the drivers behind the processes, projects and vendor decisions made by investment managers.

BSc Honours (Engineering – Computer & Electrical); Postgrad in Management (Actuarial Science)

Mark joined Infovest in Februray 2011 as a software developer within the technical team. He brings his enthusiasm and rare combination of skills including C# (C-Sharp), WPF(Windows Presentation Foundation), WF4 (Windows Workflow), ADO.Net (ActiveX Data Object for .NET) and Asset Management knowledge to the team.

Mark is a recent double graduate from the University of Cape Town where he studied Computer and Electrical Engineering (majoring in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering). Mark followed this initial degree with an additional Actuarial Science degree. He currently has 7 Actuarial Board exam exemptions and is in the process of acquiring the others after which he will qualify with a Masters in Business Science (Actuarial Science). Thereafter he aspires to complete his CFA and later a Master’s in Business Administration.

Special interests:

• Software development
• Actuarial methods
• Asset management and IT
• Telecommunication
• Risk analysis

BSc Honours (Computer Science and Information Systems)

Riaan joined Infovest in 2006 and has 8 years of experience in the investment industry. He heads up the implementation and consulting team is actively involved in pursuing new business opportunities and continually provides input with regards to product strategy and features.

Riaan started his IT career at Korbitec, where he focused on software development for the legal sector. He joined Standard Charted bank in 2003 and worked on 20twenty’s core banking system. In 2004 Riaan joined Kizen and consulted on a data warehouse project at Investec Asset Management in Cape Town where he met Robin, Tarquin, Lionel and Jenny. He spent time in London in 2005, working on the data warehouse project at Investec’s London office and on his return to South Africa Riaan re-united with Tarquin while working on a data warehouse implementation at OMIGSA. He officially started at Infovest in April 2006 and has been working in the investment data management space ever since.

Special interests:

• Assisting companies with refining their data architecture
• Project Analysis
• Looking for opportunities to continually improve our product offering by seeing patterns within our clients’ requirements
• Guiding the implementation & consulting team to deliver robust solutions
• Reading the Financial Mail.

BCom (Information Systems)

Robin joined Infovest in July 2011 as a non-executive director, and he brings with him a wealth of industry knowledge and insights into growing successful businesses. Robin focuses on new business development.

Robin has over 20 years of experience in the financial markets industry, and he is an IT professional and entrepreneur who has previously founded 2 software companies with a small group of partners. Together with his partners he helped to successfully build these companies into sustainable enterprises, and both were sold to UK software companies (SmacSoft was acquired by AFA Systems in 2000 and Kizen was acquired by StatPro in 2006). In 2011 Robin founded Human Faktor – a cloud computing enterprise offering applications via a software as a service platform (Saas).

Special interests:

• Building high-quality teams
• Ensuring software solutions meet the requirements of the investment industry
• Growing successful businesses.

Certified Solution Developer; Diploma in Programming; Diploma in Business Administration & Management; BVSc(Hons) + MMedVet (Med)

Tarquin is a founding partner of Infovest and has over 8 years of experience in the investment data world. Tarquin is the lead technical architect and he heads up the technical development team.

Tarquin started his initial career in Veterinary Science and was a senior lecturer at Onderstepoort, until he decided to join the IT boom in 2000 and face new challenges as a software developer. Tarquin has worked on various software development projects at Fraxion (a division of Ixchange) and Woolworths before joining Kizen in 2004. Kizen became the local partner for Netik (a UK based data warehouse company), and Tarquin became the technical lead on the Netik implementation at Investec Asset Management where he met Lionel, Riaan and Jenny. He also spent time in New York working on various data warehouse projects for Netik at Fidelity, CIBC, Madison Gray and Merril Lynch. Back in Cape Town in 2005 Tarquin was the technical lead on Netik’s implementation at OMIGSA, before he teamed up with Lionel and founded Infovest in 2006. Tarquin brings a wealth of technical data warehouse expertise to the development team, and actively encourages continual learning and knowledge sharing.

Special interests:

• Data warehousing design and theory
• Keeping abreast of current technology
• Workflow and its integration into software systems – and more specifically with how it integrates into the data warehouse process
• Promoting continual research and learning within Infovest.

BCom Honours (Statistics)

Zandry joined Infovest in September 2011 as a support consultant, with a focus on MIS solutions. Zandry is our reporting services expert and she brings her excellent SQL skills to the team. She is also responsible for looking after our Client Wiki.

Zandry is a recent graduate from the University of Stellenbosch where she studied a BCom Honours degree majoring in Statistics. She was one of the top 10 students for Statistical Methods. She is always very eager to learn new things and has brought her diligence and enthusiasm to Infovest and has become extremely proficient in creating workflow packages in a short space of time.

Special interests:

• Turning data into usable information
• Best practices with regards to information design and display
• Zandry is also passionate about music.