Meet the team

Rowan is a lecturer and economic development consultant with extensive experience in startup and small business support. Rowan has been involved in founding multiple startups including SMEgo, a funding platform for startups, Loadalot, a logistics startup and Ayabu, a job platform. He lectures business strategy at the University of Cape Town, and runs the regional University of Oxford Map The System competition with the Bertha Centre. He is a founder and non-executive director of Phaphama SEDI which pairs university student consultants with small businesses from townships in Cape Town.

Rowan’s current consulting projects include working with Viridian to develop training programmes for South African entrepreneurship hubs and supporting the Innovative Finance team at the Bertha Centre with research and seed fund management. He is also working with the African Management Institute to support the product development of a digital pan-African entrepreneur community. His previous projects include research on the Innovate UK township business programme, economic impact assessments for the UNDP, and developing the Atlantis Greentech SEZ strategy.

Rowan holds a Business Science degree in Finance and Accounting, a Post Graduate Diploma in Accounting and a Master’s degree in Economic Development, all from the University of Cape Town.

Sinovuyo is a recent University of Cape Town Bachelor of Business Science specialising in Finance and Accounting. She has six years of tutoring experience, ranging from mathematics and accounting to strategic thinking.

Sino is an Allan Gray Fellow and has been involved with the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation and their entrepreneurial fellowship programme since her first year of university. She is passionate about using the knowledge from her finance degree to help small and medium-sized businesses to understand their finances better and meet their financial goals.