Ian Pennel - Chief Executive Officer

Ian is a qualified Chartered Accountant (B.Comm, CA(SA)) with a Higher Diploma in Tax. He started his career with what is today known as Deloitte and after 5 years joined Dorbyl. During his 7 years at Dorbyl in several different financial management positions, he became involved in the finance industry through the ship building division of Dorbyl. Ian joined the Altron Group as Financial Director of Powertech and after a year moved to Lascon Lighting as operations manager. 4 years later he was promoted to Managing Director and another 4 years later started as Managing Director of Fintech. Ian was part of the management buy out of Fintech from the Altron Group in 2003. For the past 13 years Ian has been at the helm of Fintech and continuously takes the company from strength to strength.

Glen Christopulo - Chief Operating Officer

Glen has B Comm, Higher Diploma in Accountancy, CA (S.A.) CFA, Advance Taxation Certificate and ACMA qualifications. He started his career with Deloitte and after completion of his articles he joined Metal Box Liquid Packaging Division as Financial Manager. After joining Decimax (Pty) Ltd. as Financial Manager he became involved in the development and marketing of financial products there. This lead to him becoming Financial Consultant: Structured Finance for Real Africa Durolink Investment Bank. In 2001 while employed at Gensec Bank Limited, Glen got involved in the structuring and valuation of a strategic equity stake purchased by SCM in Fintech after which he joined as Chief Operating Officer and Executive Director of Fintech.

Shane Merriman - Head: Sales

Shane has been working for Fintech for the past 2 years as Head of Sales. With 11 years experience in the finance industry he has been instrumental in the growth of the value of assets financed through Fintech. With a B Comm degree from Unisa majoring in finance, he started his career in sales for Technologies Acceptances, a subsidiary of Fintech, in the Altron Group. Moving to Hewlett Packard he was involved in starting the HP Finance division. He then joined Rentworks, a residual based finance broker, as Account Manager and left 6 years later as General Manager to join Fintech.

Ellen Edwards - Marketing Manager

Ellen has a B. Comm degree in Marketing from what is today known as Johannesburg University. She started her career as product manager for an IT company focusing on sales and marketing. After three years in Ireland as sales and support engineer for a process engineering software company she returned to South Africa as sales and marketing coordinator specialising in Customer Relationship Management. She joined Fintech in February 2006 as Marketing Manager. Ellen has been active in promoting Fintech’s corporate profile as well as the implementation of communication strategies both internally and externally.

Melanie Diekman - Head: Credit & Sales Adminsitration

Melanie is a Chartered Associate of the Institute of Bankers (CIAB- SA) with a higher diploma in Credit Management. She also has a B. Comm degree in Marketing Management from the University of Pretoria. She started her career at Nedbank as a reports clerk in 1994 and left as a Senior Credit Analyst in Commercial Banking. In 2001 she joined Absa: Strategy and Design Compliance Services as a Credit Audit Consultant, auditing all credit units within Absa Group Credit. Two years later she joined Absa’s project management Department to assist with the re-engineering of Absa Group Credit. Today she has more than 12 years credit experience and has been with Fintech (Pty) Ltd since September 2005.

Jurie Groenewald - Head: Collections

Jurie has been in the financing industry his entire career. Starting at Bankfin as collections clerk he worked his way to becoming Branch Manager for vehicle finance. After 13 years he joined Saambou in the Asset Finance division as Area Manager. He then transferred to Head of Credit and Loss and after that became Administration Manager where he worked on joint ventures between Saambou and Invescor Finance, SA Truck Bodies, MAN and Union Finance. Before joining Fintech he was Chief Operating Officer of Flexifin, a microlending division of Saambou. In 2002 Jurie joined Fintech as Collections Manager and headed up Sales Administration from 2002 until being appointed Head of Collections in January 2009.

Chrisanthi Michaelides - Head: Finance

Chrisanthi is a qualified chartered accountant and has passed the JSE exams. After completing her articles at Karlin Taback Pelkowitz and Berman she started her career in internal auditing at Liberty Life. After 2 years of internal auditing she moved to HSBC, the then stock broking business, as assistant financial manager. After six months she was promoted to financial manager. After 1 year she moved into a management information analyst role for the retail and institutional business of HSBC. Two years later she took on the role to set up the finance and reporting banking environment of the now HSBC Bank in South Africa. After her tender of 6 years at HSBC she moved to Rand Merchant Bank. At RMB she was involved as a business analyst in the regulatory department and later moved on to the projects department in central finance as head business architecture. Today she has over 6 years financial services experience and 4 years banking experience.

Graeme Ortlieb - Head: IT

Graeme is an experienced Systems designer/ architect and implementer with a B. Comm Degree from Rhodes University. He is currently completing his dissertation for an MBA through Henley Management College and is a European Certified Senior Logistician. Graeme has 10 years of consulting experience in a number of industries including Financial services, FMCG, Mining, Distribution, Petrochemical and Pharmaceutical. He has spent the last two years as a Director of Supply Chain Dynamix, a niche consulting practice, specialising in technology architecture, strategy, and implementation. Previously at B2BAfrica, he was responsible for managing the business intelligence, Innovation and B2Bi divisions as well as being responsible for managing the customer relationship and Implementations for the largest rail company in Africa. He was previously employed at Fintech as an analyst and joined for a second time in March 2007.

Sithembile Shange - Human Resources Manager

Sithembile is a Social Worker by profession with an Honours degree in Social Sciences with Unisa. Her career started with Swiftnet (Pty) Ltd in a customer services role, with project involvement in HR. After completing a Postgraduate Dipolima in Human Resources Management she was promoted to Business Support Specialist: People development with Afrox National Customer Service Centre. After 4 years at Afrox she was appointmed at Accenture South Africa as the Professional Development Lead . After gaining some more experience with Liberty Life as Senior HR Support Specialist and with Janssen-Cilag (Pty) Ltd as HR Manager she joined Fintech is December 2008.