OUR

PEOPLE

A2X is run by a small but diverse team hand-picked from across the financial services and technology industries. We harness this collective experience and insight to operate a Stock Exchange that challenges the norms, progresses the market and gives our stakeholders an exceptional experience. Each team member plays an integral part of our business and it is why we believe that exceptional performance is only possible with the right attitude and excellent people.
 
team
Ashley Mendelowitz

Ashley Mendelowitz

Non-Executive Chairman

Ashley is one of the founders of A2X and its chairman. He has a Bachelor of Business Science (Finance), qualified as a chartered accountant, and has been involved in the financial markets since 1990. Seeing an opportunity to fundamentally impact the SA financial trading environment through technology and innovation, Ashley left the SA Futures Exchange and founded Peregrine Systems (later to be known as Peresys) in late 1996, as a subsidiary of Peregrine Holdings.

As CEO of Peresys between 1997 and 2014, Ashley was instrumental in the implementation of several market changing initiatives, some of which contributed to the dramatic growth in equities and derivatives trading volumes over the past decade. Peresys was acquired in 2011 by IRESS, an ASX listed global financial market software provider. Ashley oversaw the smooth post acquisition transition, and his role was broadened to include Europe and North America in 2013. He left IRESS at the end of 2014.

Date of Appointment : 25 May 2015
Member of the Regulatory Committee
Member of the Audit, Risk and Compliance Committee

Email: ashley.mendelowitz@a2x.co.za
Phone: +2711 088 5006
Mobile: +2782 388 1777

Sean Melnick

Sean Melnick

Non-Executive Director

Sean is one of the founders and a non-executive director of A2X. He has a Bachelor of Commerce, an Honours degree in economics and is CFA charter holder. In 1996, he co-founded Peregrine Holdings Limited and holds the position of Non-Executive Chairman. He is also Chairman of Stenham Limited, Peregrine’s international subsidiary. Sean has been primarily responsible for and integrally involved in the Peregrine group’s expansion strategy from inception overseeing almost all of the group’s new business initiatives and acquisitions. He has overseen the growth in the group from a 5 person business at inception to a wealth and asset management business employing over 600 people today and with a JSE market capitalization currently exceeding R7 billion.

Date of Appointment : 25 May 2015

Kevin Brady

Kevin Brady

Chief Executive Officer

Kevin has some 25 years experience in the financial services industry and is a co-founder and CEO of A2X (Pty) Ltd. He spent 12 years at Investec, 9 of which were as head of Investec Institutional Securities and Prime Broking division. Prior to Investec, Kevin spent 8 years at institutional stock broker, Barnard Jacobs Mellet (BJM) where he was a director and head of the equity trading desk.  Kevin has a business studies honours degree from the North London Business School and is recognised for his experience in the equity trading, business strategy and managing specialist teams in a dynamic and pressured environment.

Date of Appointment : 30 July 2014
Executive Director

Email: kevin.brady@a2x.co.za
Phone: +2711 088 5011
Mobile: +2782 568 9403

Brenda Matyolo

Brenda Matyolo

Non-Executive Director

Brenda Matyolo, is a qualified Ontological Coach through Newfield, holds a National Diploma in Accounting and Management Development Program Diploma with Unisa School of Business Leadership. She has considerable business experience gained through holding various leadership and influential management positions in various organisations in different sectors. Brenda has diverse experience is in building effective teams, managing projects, stakeholder management, growing SMME’s to deliver shareholder value, transformation of supplier chains and assisting organisations to embrace and intergrate SA’s codes of good practice on broad based black economic empowerment in doing business.

She spent 6 years as a Senior Manager at Eqstra Fleet Management as well as an Executive at Amasondo Fleet Services, an empowerment company of Eqstra Fleet Management, responsible for the day to day operations and financial management of the company reporting directly to the Board. Under her leadership, Amasondo grew to be a competitive player in the fleet management space, boasting being the only profitable black women owned and managed company, as well as being selected as a Top 500 company. It was during her tenure at Amasondo in 2014 that she was selected as a finalist for Top Young Executive of the Year. Her work experience spans over 24 years, 19 of which have been in managerial positions. Brenda joined ARC in June 2016 as the Chief Operations Officer.

Date of Appointment : 1 November 2017
Member of the Regulatory Committee
Member of the Audit, Risk and Compliance Committee

Rojie Kisten

Rojie Kisten

Non-Executive Director

Rojie Kisten hails from Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape. Rojie completed her schooling there and received the Dux Award in her Matric year.

As a result of this achievement, she was awarded a bursary to pursue her tertiary education and studied at the University of Durban Westville; the University of Stellenbosch and Harvard Business School – GMP in Boston, USA.

Rojie’s first role after university, was as a petrol attendant in Port Elizabeth but she has since spent 20 years within the Old Mutual Group, including Nedcor Bank and also spent three years at Sanlam Investment Group in Business Development.

She has experience in Banking, Insurance, Asset Management, Property, Infrastructure, Social and Affordable Housing, Agriculture, Renewable Energy Listed and Education; Capital Raising, locally and internationally; Enterprise Development Finance Funds focused on SMME’s, mainly women; Renewable Energy and Educational Trust Structuring.

Bert Chanetsa

Bert Chanetsa

Non-Executive Director

C. King Chanetsa (Bert) is a global consultant/advisor and educator working with a number of international, regional and local organisations. He is a former securities and capital markets regulator who previously held the position of Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Financial Services Board of South Africa (renamed Financial Sector Conduct Authority), where he had responsibility for capital markets including collective investment schemes, market abuse, financial market infrastructures and credit rating services. Mr Chanetsa is a former member of the Board of the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO). He was also the Vice-Chairman of the Growth and Emerging Markets Committee of IOSCO, and in that capacity served as a member of the Monitoring Board of the IFRS Foundation

Before becoming a regulator, Mr Chanetsa was the Director of Chanetsa Inc., Attorneys, as well as a corporate finance practitioner. He has extensive local and international experience in legal practice and financial services (including commercial, merchant and investment banking and private equity). Mr Chanetsa has worked for entities including Baker & McKenzie international attorneys, the Massachusetts, USA, bank previously known as First National Bank of Boston, Standard Chartered Bank, Standard Merchant Bank (now Standard Corporate & Investment Bank) and Nedbank, in the USA, Australia, Canada and South Africa.

Mr Chanetsa is a Fellow of the Financial Services Institute of Australasia. He holds BL, LL.B and Juris Doctor degrees and is admitted to practice In the State of Illinois, USA and South Africa. He is a member of the Legal Practice Council of South Africa and the American Bar Association (former Vice-Chair, International Securities and Capital Markets Committee, Section of International Law). Mr Chanetsa was previously a columnist for Business Report, a South African daily newspaper.

Mr Chanetsa is the Chairman of the Centre of Excellence if Financial Services (an affiliate of the Banking Association of South Africa) and Board member of A2X Stock Exchange.

Mr Chanetsa is the author of “Securities and Capital Markets Regulation in South Africa – A Contemporary View” published in the International Banking and Securities Law Journal by Brill Research Perspectives.

Gary Clarke

Gary Clarke

Head of Legal and Regulation

Gary is the Head of Legal and Regulation at A2X. He has 18 years’ experience in the financial services industry, 12 years of which was as an executive involved in the running of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. He is an admitted attorney who has specialised in governance, regulation, compliance and risk management and providing legal advice. Recognised for creating and implementing international best practice governance, compliance, regulation and enterprise wide risk management structures in a listed company which is an exchange.

Date of Appointment : 5 November 2015
Company Secretary

Email: gary.clarke@a2x.co.za
Tel: +2711 088 5010
Mobile: +2783 452 4997

Otsile Matheba

Otsile Matheba

Chief Financial Officer

Otsile Matheba was appointed as Chief Financial Officer of A2X on 1 December 2017 and is currently responsible for the full financial function of the company. Prior to joining A2X, Otsile was the financial manager of Peregrine Securities where he looked after Peregrine Derivatives, Peregrine Securities and Legae Securities. Before joining Peregrine, Otsile worked at ABI the soft drinks division of SABMiller as a financial analyst and at Coca-Cola SA as a CA trainee. Otsile is a qualified Charted Accountant and holds a post graduate diploma in business administration from the Gordon Institute of Business Science. Otsile completed his Bachelor of Accounting Science undergraduate studies at Wits University and obtained his honours degree at the University of South Africa.
 
Date of Appointment : 1 December 2017
 
Email: otsile.matheba@a2x.co.za
Phone: +2711 088 5016

Neal Lawrence

Neal Lawrence

Chief Technology Officer

Neal is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for A2X and is currently responsible for all IT aspects for the company. Neal has over 15 years of IT experience working in Global Investment Banks (UBS and Absa Capital) and has global IT experience managing diverse IT teams across Europe, Middle East and Africa. Neal was also responsible for managing various large Equity IT programmes whilst in his role as Head of IT at UBS.

Date of Appointment : 1 August 2014

Email: neal.lawrence@a2x.co.za
Phone: +2711 088 5015
Mobile: +2783 776 6660

Brett Kotze

Brett Kotze

Head of Post-Trade Services

Brett has worked in the financial industry for some 30 years, of which 17 have been in the exchange space, and brings extensive clearing and settlement expertise to A2X Markets. Amongst many other implemented projects, Brett oversaw the successful implementation of the move in the settlement cycle for equities from T+5 to T+3 mid 2016 and has also been involved in several important industry projects, including ITAC, a central counterparty clearing initiative and the settlement process for the Government Bond DIS project. In addition, he sits on numerous local and global committees representing the South African markets.

Date of Appointment : 1 July 2017

Email: brett.kotze@a2x.co.za
Phone: +2711 088 5007
Mobile: +2782 904 2254

Kholofelo Motshekga

Kholofelo Motshekga

Market Surveillance Analyst

Date of Appointment : 25 September 2017

Email: kholofelo.motshekga@a2x.co.za
Phone: +2711 088 5012

Rose Willem

Rose Willem

Post-Trade Services

Date of Appointment : 1 October 2017

Email: rose.willem@a2x.co.za
Phone: +2711 088 5017

Luthfia Akbar

Luthfia Akbar

Legal and Regulation

Date of Appointment : 4 September 2017

Email: luthfia.akbar@a2x.co.za
Phone: +2711 088 5013

Stuart Jackson

Stuart Jackson

IT Ops Support Analyst

Stuart is an IT Ops Analyst for A2X. He started his career in financial markets in 2008 when he started work in the Hermes support team at Peresys. In 2011, around the same time that Peresys was acquired by IRESS, he moved to Cape Town to work in the FIX services team. After completing a number of large projects, Stuart longed for the Johannesburg pace and returned in 2015 where he took up the role of Hermes Product Owner. In August 2017 Stuart joined A2X.
 
Date of Appointment : 1 August 2017
 
Email: stuart.jackson@a2x.co.za
Phone: +2711 088 5018

Diane Bomberg

Diane Bomberg

Marketing & Business Development

Date of Appointment : 09 April 2018

Email: diane.bomberg@a2x.co.za
Phone: +2711 088 5008

Mark van Eck

Mark van Eck

IT Infrastructure Engineer

Date of Appointment : 1 September 2017

Email: mark.vaneck@a2x.co.za
Phone: +2711 088 5014

David Jumna

David Jumna

Manager Settlement Operations

Date of Appointment : 2 July 2021

Email: david.jumna@a2x.co.za
Phone: +2711 088 5009