André Van Der Veen
CA(SA), CFA, ACMA
Non-Executive Chairman
André is a senior business executive. He has been the CEO of Nives and Media Holdings (both listed entities on the JSE) and served on several corporate boards over the past two decades.
André has developed and successfully exited a number of businesses in the technology, entertainment and consumer industries.
Frans Meyer
PhD, M.Eng
Chief Executive Officer
Frans co-founded the EMSS Group (now Alphawave) guiding it from a consulting start-up to a Group of companies offering various products and services. He has been involved, on executive level, with a number of successful start-ups and various medium enterprises in the Group and is currently an active non-executive director of each company in the Group.
Isak Theron
PhD, M.Eng
Group Director & Director at EMSS Antennas
Isak was one of the first EMSS employees. He is one of the key technical leads originally involved with FEKO (electromagnetic software package) and later with the MeerKAT and SKA receiver contracts. Apart from his formidable engineering skills, Isak has been a business director of EMSS and the Alphawave Group since the late 1990s.
Marnus van Wyk
M.Eng
Group Director & Installation Lead at Inrange® Golf
Marnus joined EMSS in 2000 as an engineer. He grew EMSS Consulting (now Alphawave Mobile Network Services & Products) from a start-up to a company with more than 50 people. He is an expert in logistical operations management and plays a critical role in the business expansion of the engineering companies in the Group.
Sam Clarke
M.Eng, MBA
Group Director & CEO of Skynamo
Sam joined EMSS in 2002 with a Master’s in Computational Electromagnetics. He founded Antenna Magus, later sold to CST-GmbH. In 2012, he co-founded Honeybee (now Skynamo), which has grown to a company with more than 100 people in SA, and now expanding into the UK and US markets. Sam plays a key role in business thinking throughout the Group.
Taariq Ahmed
CA (SA)
Group Financial Director
Taariq joined Alphawave in 2021. He has over 10 years experience in corporate finance with a focus on debt structuring, M&A and fund raising processes. He has built up deep insights and extensive networks through the execution of various tech deals throughout the African continent. Taariq is a qualified Chartered Accountant and completed his Post-Graduate Degree in Accounting at UCT.
Non-Executive Director
Coen Bester
BSc. (Electronic Eng.), BSc Honns., MBA, PGD (Future Studies), OPM (HBS)
Non-Executive Director
Coen is an entrepreneur with 40 years of experience. He specialises in the strategy of high-tech businesses. He founded and exited his own tech company in the 1990s. Since then, he has served as business advisor and angel investor. He was actively involved in the local listing of 2 tech startups and currently serves on their boards as non-executive director.
Kgotso Schoeman
BA (Econ), ALP
Non-Executive Director
Kgotso is the founding CEO of Kagiso Capital and former CEO of Kagiso Trust. During his 20-year tenure at the Trust, he played a remarkable role in taking it from it being a general conduit grant funding agency to a development and implementing agency in the education and rural finance fields – thereby ensuring its relevance and sustainability. He also led the design and implementation of the Beyers Naude Schools Development Programme.
Lebogang Mosiane
BCompt (Hons) CFA Level 2 candidate
Non-Executive Director
Lebo is the COO of Kagiso Capital, where he sources and evaluates appropriate investment opportunities. Before joining Kagiso in 2015, he worked at PC and the Shanduka Group. He gained extensive experience in investments and finance during his tenure as a senior associate at Shanduka where he was responsible for managing their Africa business, Private Equity Fund and monitoring investments in various sectors.
Isak Theron
PhD, M.Eng
Electromagnetics
Isak joined EMSS to work on the kernel and user interface of FEKO – comprehensive electromagnetics software used in the telecommunications, automobile, space and defense industries. This resulted in more than 10 peer-reviewed papers. He led the development of the feed systems and optics for the MeerkAT and the SKA radio telescopes. His work on the MeerKAT is what made it the world’s most sensitive L- and UHF-band radio telescope.
Johann de Swardt
PhD
Microwave Electronics
Johann received his PhD in 1992 and started at Etse Electronics in 1997. His main field of interest is microwave systems and components. He led the development of a wide range of electronic products in the military, space, commercial and agriculture fields. This includes radar, satellite transceivers, modems and GSM applications. He has published 11 journal and 39 conference papers.
Richard Barry
M. Sc. Eng
Software Development & IoT
Richard has a computer science and electronic engineering background with 20 years of experience in software engineering. He’s worked on software for satellites, radars and network routers. Early in his career, he was part of the team that built a satellite from concept to launch in 1 year – a South African first. He is a specialist in loT trends and advancements as well as an experienced entrepreneur who has grown Polymorph to where it is today.
Etienne Barnard
PhD
Machine Learning & AI
Etienne performed some of the earliest work on optimisation for training neural networks and was scientific lead for the group that developed the first widely-used speech technology systems for the languages and dialects of Southern Africa. He holds several patents related to speech processing, has published around 300 refereed publications, and has received a number of academic awards including four Google Research Awards and the Presidential Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research.
Charl Van Heerden
PhD
Voice Technology
Charl van Heerden is Saigen’s cofounder and CEO. He is a former research associate in the NWU MuST research group and a seasoned developer in the speech technologies domain. He interned with Google in 2007 (language modeling for GOOG-411), 2008 (language modeling for Voice Search) and 2010 (Voice Search for Afrikaans, English and isiZulu). He holds a PhD in Computer Engineering (thesis: “Efficient training of Support Vector Machines and their hyperparameters”) and has co-authored 40 + peer-reviewed papers on speech recognition and general pattern recognition.
Gerrit Kruger
M. Sc. Eng
Virtual & Augmented Reality
Gerrit has a passion for cutting edge technology and creative solutions. He co-founded Sozo Labs in 2015 to focus on the development of Virtual and Augmented Reality (Extended Reality) applications that merge the physical and virtual worlds, from haptic feedback gloves to omnidirectional treadmills. As this new field in human computer interaction evolves, Gerrit and his team are establishing themselves not only as strategic thinkers, but as leaders in the space.
Jason Haddock
MBA, MSc
Virtual & Augmented Reality
Jason is the CEO of Sozo Labs and has designed and delivered over 30 immersive applications in AR and VR over the past 10 years. Jason believes that immersive technology can deliver real business value in the right context. Jason and the Sozo team are working on leading edge immersive applications for customers in Europe, USA, Japan and Africa.
Gert-Jan Van Rooyen
PhD
Web3 (Crypto, Smart Contracts, Blockchain & NFT’s)
Gert-Jan holds a PhD in Signal Processing, and spun out Custos Media Technologies from Stellenbosch University in 2014 – a company that commercialised one of the earliest NFT-related patents. He is also co-founder of the MIH Media Lab, Octoco, and Fanfire. He has a strong interest in innovation management, and is currently focusing on new business applications of NFTs and other types of smart contracts. Gert-Jan maintains his links with Stellenbosch University as Associate Professor ExtraOrdinary in Industrial Engineering.
SJ Marais
M.Eng
Radar Technology
Inrange® co-founder, SJ Marais, has a passion for golf exceeded only by the technical expertise gained over nearly 2 decades’ experience designing and developing antennas and high frequency electronics. A resident of Stellenbosch, SA, SJ completed his Master of Engineering (M.Eng) specialising in RF Electronics and Antenna Engineering at Stellenbosch University in 2006 before beginning work on developing cryogenic receivers for the MeerKAT radio telescope. In 2015 he turned his attention to developing the distributed radar sensor golf ball tracking technology that would become Inrange.
We are always looking for highly talented people to join our team. We have full-time and internship opportunities within the group.
