// WHO WE ARE
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The Team
At the heart of the KZN Growth Fund is our brand essence, the sentiment that drives and motivates everything we do and this centers on the concept of financing growth in the province.
Lwazi Zondi
Chief Financial Officer
B.Com(Accounting) currently doing CGMA(Chartered Global Management Accountant) qualification.
Mr Zondi graduated from the University of KwaZulu-Natal and served his articles at PricewaterHouseCoopers (PwC) and LMD Africa Chartered Accountants Inc. Prior to being appointed as Finance Manager of KZN Growth Fund in November 2015, Mr Zondi occupied various positions, namely Ferrero Agri SA(Financial Manager) & Bidvest Panalpina Logistics (Financial Risk Manager).
Khwezi Nhassengo
Chief Investment Officer
BSc Chemical Engineering (UCT), Finance and Risk Management (UNISA)
Khwezi has over 15 years’ experience in the finance and investments industry. After graduating as a chemical engineer she gained hands on experience in manufacturing operations whilst working as a Technologist responsible for the Visbreaker and Bitumen units at the Shell and BP Petroleum Refinery (SAPREF) in Durban. She further gained extensive experience in a wide range of industries as a strategy and management consultant at PWC Consulting. She further held senior management roles in risk analysis and investments at Nedbank and Kwande Investments.
She was a private equity Transactor at RMB Ventures, the private equity division of First Rand Limited. She has indepth experience in the full value chain of investing and has assessed investment opportunities spanning various industries from origination through to exit. Prior to joining the KZN Growth Fund, Khwezi held an executive level position as the project lead on the Durban Dig-out Port project for SAPREF acting as the focal point for all project stakeholders which included shareholders and board members of the various entities. Khwezi has served as a nominee director on various portfolio companies through her investment career.
Urvashi Ojageer
General Legal Counsel
Urvashi is an admitted attorney with over 20 years of in-house corporate legal expertise. Her career commenced at Business Partners then in Gauteng I worked at ABSA Bank (Commercial Properties), Diluculo Investments, National Empowerment Fund and Sasfin Bank.
Her legal knowledge and experience includes banking, corporate and commercial law, investment funding in various industries through hybrid instruments including equity and structured finance. As an in-house counsel she also conducts legal due diligence exercises, provides reliable and detailed legal opinions, identifies and mitigate legal risk , investigates and considers the impact of relevant statutes(and amendments thereto) on business as usual.
She has exposure in a broad range of industries including banking, financial services, property and construction, engineering, ICT, media, entertainment, manufacturing and mining industries.
Nathi Nkosi
Chief Risk Officer
BPaed, Bcom Hons, MBL, PIPM
Nathi’s career in financial risk management spans over twenty years, in different roles, with various financial institutions. A commercial subject teacher by profession, he joined the private sector where he honed his risk management skills with companies such as Credit Guarantee Insurance, Nedbank, Khula Enterprise Finance, Development Bank of Southern Africa, Anglo American and Liberty – where he performed roles such as credit administration and analysis, underwriter, head of risk, chief risk officer, an independent financial advisor and a trainer-consultant in credit-investment risk management.
His areas of expertise include credit and investment risk management for corporate finance, project finance, municipal finance, SME finance and equity investments, across all sectors of business operations, in SA and the SADC region. He is also skilled in developing policies, procedures and methodologies for managing financial risks. Before joining the KZNGF, he worked as an independent financial advisor with Liberty, and as a trainer-consultant on credit-investment risk management. On the latter, he has developed and facilitated training courses for various DFIs in the SADC region, on behalf of the SADC DFRC. His hobbies and outside interests include farming and properties.