Calvin started his career writing code as a Fintech Software developer, moved into UX research and Product design, and now leads Experience Design at Takealot. That journey has shaped a simple belief: the best products are built when users, designers, developers and business thinkers intentionally collaborate outside of silos. He has received recognition across digital and UX awards and served as a Digital Crafts judge for the Loeries. When he's not working, he enjoys hiking Cape Town's peaks, and getting creative with his kids over a good colouring book.

Daniel Courtenay is VP of Product at Canal+, where he leads DStv's product and streaming experience across one of Africa's largest entertainment platforms.

His career has moved from digital advertising and programmatic media into product, data and streaming. He started at Mxit, later led MaxAxion and AdJoin Media, before joining MultiChoice and eventually taking the lead on DStv Stream.

Today, his focus is on how technology, data and AI can make a huge catalogue of entertainment feel personal. He has helped lead DStv Stream's evolution around content discovery, recommendation and personalisation, with a belief that the future of streaming is not simply about having more to watch, but getting people to the right thing faster.

Phumi Körber is the founder and CEO of Kloset Klub, a South African fashion-tech company. Before becoming a founder, she built her career in retail and e-commerce at TFG.

Her perspective is shaped by years of building for real consumer behaviour in South Africa, where adoption, trust and commercial viability matter just as much as the technology itself. She is particularly focused on how African businesses can use AI to operate leaner, scale faster and compete more effectively without needing the resources of much larger companies.

When she's not building businesses, she's usually chasing a good music festival somewhere in the world.

David Torr started UCOOK from a garage in 2014 with Chris Verster-Cohen, on R25,000 borrowed each and first orders taken on Facebook. The meal-kit business was fully acquired by Silvertree Holdings in 2022, in a deal reported at $12.3m. He now runs FARO as founder and CEO — an off-price retailer that buys unsold stock from brands like Levi's, Zara and Guess, reconditions it and resells it at a permanent discount, across roughly 20 stores and 500 staff. He describes his own method as “ready, fire, aim”.

Dean Broadley has spent eighteen years building the organisations behind the products, not just the products themselves. As Director of Design at Yoco, he leads across product, industrial, service, brand and marketing design. Former Global President of IxDA and founder of Designing Humans, he's known for one thing: translating excellent design into commercial outcomes at all scales.

Fred Roed is the founder and CEO of Heavy Chef, a learning platform for entrepreneurs. The name ‘Heavy Chef’ comes from the saying never trust a skinny chef, and aims to share practical learnings from Africa's leading technologists, leaders and creatives. Fred co-founded the Heavy Chef Foundation, which provides learning programmes for high-potential emerging entrepreneurs. Fred is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, investor and father. Fred believes that entrepreneurs can change the world for the better. Fred is also pretty sure he saw Elvis once, at the Pick n' Pay in Tableview.

Howie Kahn spent the first part of his career in sports media and communications, including Western Province Rugby, before moving into sports marketing at adidas. Since 2023 he has been Brand Director at Sealand, the Cape Town B Corp making bags and apparel from waste material, where he runs brand relationships and partnerships — most recently a collection with Kaizer Chiefs lined with 88 metres of retired stadium banners. He argues a partnership should be a meeting of two institutions, not a logo swap. He is colour-blind, and admits his golf and his fitness are both works in progress.

Kia Abbott is the Chief Customer Officer at Virgin Active, working across nine territories to build deeper customer understanding and create experiences that drive engagement, participation and long-term member retention. With a career spanning consulting, retail, banking and wellness, she has led customer transformation initiatives for leading brands including Shoprite, Cape Union Mart and Capitec.

Kia is passionate about understanding what motivates people to change behaviour and building experiences that help customers engage more deeply, achieve their goals and stay loyal over time. Drawing on customer insight, data and innovation, she designs strategies that create meaningful value for both customers and businesses.

Natalie is MakeReign's Product Design Director, and an award-winning e-commerce designer. She is best known for turning complexity into clarity — balancing customer needs with commercial outcomes, and shaping ambiguous problems into confident product deliverables. With deep foundations across UX research, UX design and UI design, she brings a data-informed, systems-first approach to defining the right problems and aligning the people around them.

A people-first leader, she invests in growing capability and creating the conditions for teams to do their best work. Outside the studio she is a proud Portuguese-South African and a RYT-qualified Vinyasa Yoga Instructor who loves a good spreadsheet, has an extensive allergy list, and is always keen for a sunrise gym session.

Nils, German by birth, Swedish at heart, South African by choice and a true citizen of the Internet. His love for computers and the web dates back to his 9th birthday when he received his first computer, a C64. Since then, he has been fascinated by technology and the sound of the dial-up tone from a 14.4k modem caught his heart.

Nils spent years working as an IT consultant for blue-chip companies across Europe. But he later decided to trade his suit and tie for the bustling world of startups in beautiful Africa. He had the opportunity to work as CTO for the continent's largest e-commerce company and CIO for its largest online marketplace. Since 2020, he's been the Managing Director for the tech hub of Ringier, one of Europe's biggest media companies. He also advises multiple African e-commerce and marketplace companies.

Rasheed “Rash” Ferguson founded Flo-State Studio, a brand-led marketing and content studio energising lifestyle, retail and fashion brands. It specialises in human-centred AI content production, brand architecture and experiential marketing.

He came up through the craft. Nearly two decades across film production, digital design, photography, brand development and digital marketing, including a spell as Creative Director and CEO of Responsive Studio and, before that, founding the Vector Collective. He also founded the luxury streetwear label FURRG Originals. That route — maker first, marketer second — is why a builder's room suits him.

Before Flo-State he led brand, marketing, design, visual merchandising and ecommerce across four of TFG's youth brands — sportscene, Archive, Redbat and Anatomy — running the culture platforms that reach young South Africa at scale, including the emerging-artist competition Put Me On.

Rob freelanced for about a decade before founding One Page Love, a single-page website gallery that grew into a beloved community reaching over 100,000 unique visitors a month and allowed him to work on his own projects full time. He also shipped an ebook and landing page course, and hosted the Yo! Podcast.

He enjoys building little things in public and letting them find their audience. His most recent project, Right Click Logo, explored prompt engineering to add a brand asset menu to any website logo.

In July 2026, One Page Love was acquired, and he joined the video marketing hype team at Framer. He surfs, travels and likes 90s punk rock.