Founders Conference 2023 blew the socks off every attendee!

By Founders Events Team | January 12, 2024

Outsourced CFO believes that providing support for entrepreneurs can change the world. Successful entrepreneurs create economic growth, employment and have great social impact. We serve entrepreneurs, which is why we have hosted the Founders Conference every year for the past 6 years.

“There is extraordinary power of community in Africa’s entrepreneurial journey.” ~Louw Barnardt

OCFO’s Founders Conference is a leading event for SMEs in Africa and a must-attend if you are serious about doing business in Africa. This conference brings together top business people and entrepreneurs across Africa for powerful networking and learning opportunities. Keynote speakers share wisdom, actionable insights and advice from years in the business, while panel discussions facilitated by top founders delve deeper into relevant topics.

We are grateful to have had a strong list of speakers and topics which included:

In his keynote, the famous Jason Goldberg shared lessons from the trenches after almost two decades of scaling and helping other Founders scale. He started his career at Bain & Co as a strategy consultant, then started Edge Growth, which partners with multinationals to fund and support growing SMEs, in 2007. Jason launched Edge Growth’s Ventures arm, 10X Entrepreneur and Nxt-9, a SaaS platform to help Founders scale.

Friedrich Meisenholl: Why do we back entrepreneurs in SA?

Friedrich Meisenholl is the regional investment manager at Business Partners Limited, a local risk financier for small and medium-sized businesses offering risk finance for entrepreneurs in South Africa and beyond – these guys fund more ventures than anyone on the continent!

Ross Davie from Silicon Overdrive shared some tech hacks and funding opportunities in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) ecosystem. He is an AWS Business Development Director and a co-founder of Silicon Overdrive.

Fred Roed: What Is The Strongest Predictor Of Entrepreneur Success?

Fred Roed is the CEO of Heavy Chef, a prominent platform for startup founders, business leaders, and aspiring entrepreneurs that allows them to gain practical insights and engage with industry experts.

After these brilliant speakers, the specialists were up next, with a round of riveting panel discussions. The panel members were:

Sipho Philime is the co-founder of E-Squared, which provides innovative educational and entrepreneurial solutions that empower young entrepreneurs and students with the skills and knowledge essential for success in the modern economy.

Daniel Goldberg is a Fintech founder of Bridgement Finance which combines technology and data science for a new approach to traditional business funding.

Louw Barnard is co-founder and Managing Director of Outsourced CFO, which specializes in financial strategy, systems development, and fundraising. Louw empowers start-ups and established businesses to achieve their financial goals while scaling their operations.

Rebecca Stürmer, also known as the “Truth Serum Coach,” is a dynamic and multi-faceted facilitator and keynote speaker.

Following the brilliant experts’ panel discussions, the speakers continued – and who better to speak about ‘The state of venture capital in Africa’ than Launch Africa Ventures’s Zachariah George! Launch Africa Ventures is an African venture capital fund that seeks to address the significant gap in Seed to Series A investments across the continent.

Next up on the agenda was Arnold Shapiro with the ‘Founder journey from start to listing and beyond.’ Arnold is CEO and shareholder at Trematon Capital Investments Ltd, an investment group whose portfolio comprises investments, subsidiaries, associates and joint ventures in a variety of industries.

Keet van Zyl took us through ‘Things that matter for raising capital in the current environment.’ As co-founder of Knife Capital and board member of the Southern African Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (SAVCA), Keet has experience in private equity, banking and venture capital and strives toward building the early-stage funding ecosystem in Africa.

The last speaker was James de Villiers who discussed ‘founder stress and anxiety management.’ James is a Psychologist and Hypnotherapist with an interest in using hypnosis as part of the therapeutic journey. He holds an MA in Counseling Psychology and is well-known for his popular advice column in Sarie Magazine.

The Founders Conference 2023 exceeded expectations and was one to remember, with speakers imparting riveting and insightful advice and knowledge. We were also grateful to have such well-respected and knowledgeable panel experts participating. The attendees were keen to learn and took full advantage of the networking opportunities on offer, and the chatter during the break and after the event gave the night a special feel.