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Julian Williams
Chairman

Qualifications:

Julian Williams graduated with a Masters in Commerce from the University of Cape Town. He successfully completed his board examination and following the completion of his training contract with Pricewaterhouse Coopers Inc, he obtained his CA (SA) professional membership from the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants.

Business:

In 2001, he was responsible for launching Penryth (Proprietary) Limited, a specialist securities lending business in South Africa. This led him to move across and establish the Abante Group of companies, which comprise: Abante Capital (Proprietary) Limited, a Financial Services Board registered investment manager specializing in statistical arbitrage trading strategies; Abante Virtus (Proprietary) Limited, a private equity company focusing on black economic empowerment transactions in South Africa; Asset Liability Management (Proprietary) Limited, a specialist securities lending and third party treasury management company; and Abante Management (Proprietary) Limited, an administrative and fiduciary service company

Mr. Williams is a co founder of the Basileus Group of companies with James Ngculu. The Basileus Group specialises in Private Equity transactions and corporate advisory work.

While running the Abante Group, Julian founded Wesizwe Platinum Limited, a platinum group metals explorer and mine developer. Julian managed the listing of Wesizwe on the JSE Limited in December 2005.

Julian was also responsible for the spinoff of Avalloy from African Rainbow Minerals Ltd.

James Ngculu
Director

Mr Ngculu has been a Member of Parliament from 1998 to 2009 and served in the following Parliamentary Committees: Trade and Industry; Defence and in Health as the Chairperson of the Committee. Member of the ANC.  He went into exile in 1976 and returned to South Africa in 1990 and served in various capacities for the ANC to date including being an advisor at CODESA on the Transitional Arrangements Work Group.

He acquired Post Graduate Diploma in Economic Principles from University of London and Certificate in Management Development from the University of Cape Town, Graduate School of Business. He also got a Diploma in Defence Management from the University of Witwatersrand Programme Development and Management [PDM].

Mr Ngculu acted as the Provincial Secretary of the ANC in Western Cape from 1994 – 1998 and the  Provincial Chairperson of the African National Congress in the Western Cape Province from 2005 – 2008. He spent many years in exile in many countries in Africa and Europe serving under the aegis of the ANC (African National Congress).  He assisted the University of Witwatersrand as visiting lecturer of Civil-Military Relations for SADC officers and assisted also on Security Sector Reforms in Uganda, Ghana, and Nigeria.

In Writing:

Mr Ngculu co-authored a book, “Ourselves to Know” edited by Dr Rocklyn Williams and Diane Philander (Southern African defence and security experts) as a collaboration on Security Sector Reforms. The book was published by Institute for Security Studies.  He also published another book by New Africa Books entitled “The Honour to Serve” which won him a nomination as finalist for the Alan Paton Award in 2010.

In Business:

Mr Ngculu was a Director in an investment Group of Companies, founder member of Wesizwe Platinum Limited and Director of Great Karoo Metals.

He is cofounder of the Basileus Group of companies with Julian Williams. The Basileus Group specialises in Private Equity transactions and corporate advisory work.  He is currently Chairman of Basileus Holdings.

Alan Bissell
CEO

Qualifications:

Alan was born in London, England and holds the following qualifications:

• High National Certificate: Inorganic, organic and physical chemistry from Hatfield Polytechnic;
• Ordinary National Certificate: Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry from Mid-Herts College.

Business:

Before Alan joined Avalloy he worked as the Chief Commercial Officer of Metalysis Ltd (from 2004-2008) which is based in Sheffield, England.

Metalys is a University of Cambridge spinout company established to develop the FFC molten salt electrochemical reduction process to produce metals and alloys directly from oxides in a single process step.

Alan has also been exposed to various different companies and held various positions, these are detailed below:

• 1987-2004 ATI Allvac Ltd – Managing Director, commercial
• 1985-1987 Turbine Blading Group – Group Technical and Quality Manager
• 1980-1985 Turbine Services Ltd – Chemist
• 1976-1980 Roche Products Ltd – Pharmaceutical Research
• 1973-1976 Smith Kline and French Ltd – Pharmaceutical Research

Alan is an entrepreneurial business manager with a strong strategic and commercial bias and track record of leading companies to achieve sustainable profitable growth and new market penetration.

Glenn Round

Business:

Glenn is currently Vice President Corporate Venturing for the Rolls-Royce Group having been with the business for six years. He manages a portfolio of ventures, investments in new ventures, and spins out new technologies from Rolls-Royce. He moved to this role from the Rolls-Royce Controls and Transmissions Business Unit where during his time there he delivered multi-million Pound Sterling savings in one major new engine programme.

Immediately prior to joining Rolls-Royce, Glenn was a key leader in the deployment of a Six Sigma programme in a sizeable Siemens joint venture resulting in multi-million Pound Stirling savings.

Qualifications:

Glenn completed an MBA at Cranfield School of Management in 2001, and holds a PhD in Theoretical Physics and a BSc in Physics from the University of Surrey.

Evan Badenhorst

More information on Evan coming soon…