Keith Boyd

Keith was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and lived and worked in Africa for 37 years. He currently resides in the United Arab Emirates, where he is ideally positioned to play a key role in the company’s expansion in North Africa and the Middle East.

Keith started his working career in the actuarial department of Old Mutual, and was focused on writing and implementing IT systems to automate actuarial changes to life policies.

In 1989, Keith left Old Mutual to pursue a career in the commercial side of IT systems, subsequently being appointed to the board of DNS, and then Plessey.

Highlights of Keith’s career include running the second largest IT networking company in South Africa, as well as Plessey in Africa. He was in instrumental in cutting costs, devising and implementing a new strategic direction, and diversifying the customer base in that organisation. Keith left Plessey to start Venture Communications in 2002.

Charles Osburn

Charles has been in the IT business for over 30 years and has a wealth of experience as both a user and supplier. He has held senior management positions in the Banking as well as Manufacturing environments before becoming a co-founder of DNS, which went on to become one of the leading Network and Professional/Managed Services suppliers in South Africa.

Since the successful sale and integration of DNS into the Dimension Data Group, Charles has been involved in a number of projects ranging from Software R&D to Managed Services and Consulting both in South Africa as well as the UK and Australia.

After the integration of DNS into Didata plc, Charles took two years off to pursue some private activities in the yachting and photography world and rejoined the ITC market in 2002 and 2003 with a two year contract as CEO with a software Research and Development company, PreworX before joining Quintica in February 2005.

Stiaan Engelbrecht

Stiaan started his working career in 1981 in the technical side of Telkom, South Africa’s state owned Telecomms operator. He then moved into the commercial sector, focusing on technical sales, and worked his way through the ranks to running the Sales team at Plessey. Stiaan co-founded Venture Communications with Keith Boyd in 2002, initially fulfilling the role of Sales Director. Having taken on the role of acting CEO in Keith’s absence on numerous occasions over the last 6 years, ensured that Stiaan was very well qualified to take on the role full time when this became available in December 2007. 

David Pfaff

David has recently been appointed as Chief Financial Officer of the Q-Venture Group. David is responsible for managing the Q-Venture Group treasury, finances, legal matters as well as tax planning. He is also responsible for managing investor relations and leading the corporate communications team. David will be based in our London Office but working closely with the management teams in Africa, Asia Pacific and the Middle East. Prior to joining Q-Venture, David was Group Finance Director at Datatec.

Zane Renou

Zane Renou - was born in Durban, South Africa, and currently resides in Johannesburg. He started his career within the financial and insurance sectors where he designed; project managed and implemented information management systems for these organizations. In 2001 Zane pursued his career beyond the borders of South Africa where he performed business development for one of the Atlantique Telecom Group’s subsidiaries throughout Africa and Europe in the position of Chief Business Development Officer. Zane accepted a key position at Venture Communications in 2006 and currently holds the Managing Director’s position for the South and Southern Africa region.

Paul Meredith

Paul joined Venture Communications in October 2007 as Managing Director for East & Central Africa; he has 28 years experience in the telecommunications industry initially with BT in the UK but since 1992 he has worked in various African countries.  Originally from a fixed line background he transferred to mobile in 1998 as CTO for a start up company in East Africa.  In total he has been CTO for three GSM operators in Africa and has focused on the development of local skills and resources to build sustainable operations.  In his spare time he plays golf.

Ingo Tuschardt

Ingo has been in the executive Business Management and Consulting game for over 20 years. His core focus has been in the areas of consulting with regards to restructuring and process implementation, ensuring that corporates achieve the goals set out when embarking on IT related projects and restructuring programs. Ingo has driven a large number of successful projects all the way from inception through to operational execution and delivery.

Ingo realized early on in its life cycle the huge benefits that a structured business approach to Service Management based on the ITIL Best Practices would bring to the South African corporate world. He was instrumental in bringing the best of breed technologies and practices to market, namely the formation of Quintica and the Marval suite of products. Currently Ingo’s role and responsibilities are ensuring that all the operational aspects of the business function in harmony and result in successful delivery of projects to our customers. Ingo is currently Managing Director: Quintica SA.

Colin Cloete

Colin Cloete is the Regional Director for Middle East and North Africa. He is a certified ITIL Service Manager & ISO/IEC20000 Consultant. In his role for Quintica MENA Colin has a specific responsibility for the increasingly important domain of how business and information technology need to work together and how to keep both Business & IT aligned.

Colin has helped to develop the company’s Service Management (SM) strategy, which included the Service approach now (now part if ITIL v3 refresh) and in his current role he is responsible for building the company’s 3-year strategy plan. He is also responsible for educating the Quintica’s customers and employees, the media and analysts about the company’s vision and strategy. In addition to evangelising, Colin works closely with the itSMF to keep up-to-date on any changes that need to be passed onto the Service Managers’ consultants and customers, thus helping to ensure that the consulting they deliver are pertinent worldwide both today and in the future. His role in defining how Service Management (ITIL), Strategic Project Delivery and Quality Management (EFQM) interrelate and complement each other has shown major interest in related camps. Colin assisted with the setting up of the Quintica ME business in 2006 after 8 years with IBM and 7 years with Rank Xerox. His focus now is to continue with this growth as well as lead the expansion drive in North Africa.

Sean Lenz

Sean was born and raised in Cape Town, where he spent nearly 27 years before relocating to Johannesburg in 1999.  During his time spent in Cape Town, he completed his studies in Mechanical Engineering, where he worked in engineering at an oil refinery in Cape Town, whilst completing his studies. He moved on to head up the Design department for Tredcor, a large automotive parts company in South Africa.

Upon his move to Johannesburg, Sean joined Dimension Data as a national account manager, where his technical background and commercial knowledge was quickly brought to the fore when he managed to change the “status quo” of the industry by providing turnkey infrastructure solutions in South Africa and then into Africa for multinational companies. His efforts in Africa were mainly focused in the West African region before moving into the eastern African market, in Kenya.  In his final year at Dimension Data, Sean headed up the Data Centre Infrastructure business, before moving to Venture Communications in May 2007.  Sean has traveled extensively throughout Africa over the past 7 years.

Sean heads up the sales team in the position of Group Sales Director for Venture Communications.

Harry Schmitz

Harry grew up in Johannesburg, but after finishing school went to further his studies in Germany. After obtaining a Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the TU München, he started his career with BMW in Munich. Staring as a production engineer in the automobile industry, Harry attended INSEAD in France to obtain his MBA.

From there he joined Apple Computer Europe in Paris, working in a variety of financial roles. In 1993 he returned to South Africa with MAN Commercial Vehicles, where, for a number of years, he was joint MD responsible for Finance, Administration, IT and the Parts business.

Harry then moved on to lead the successful turn-around of a loss making chemical company which had been spun off by a large multi-national. During this time he became intimately familiar with the special challenges faced by smaller, fast-growing companies.

Roger Purdie

Roger has been in IT for over 23 years. He began his career in mainframe operations, but quickly moved to customer, then technical support functions. He has been involved with major infrastructure projects and has worked in account management and leadership roles. In the 80’s and 90’s, Roger was involved with the Mine Rescue squad in Mount Isa, Australia – during this time his passion for clear, open and effective communication was not only required - it was critical. This philosophy carries over to Roger’s business beliefs.

Roger has delivered ITIL Managers education throughout the world, as well as multiple ITSM simulations and ISO 20000 Consultant programs. He was one of the first qualified ITIL experts having passed the required certification tests. Roger has spoken at a number of conferences including the first itSMF conference in South Korea. He has also delivered programs in Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, India, Dubai, Bahrain, Mexico, USA, Canada, Singapore, South Africa, Australia, and South Korea.

Roger has responsibility for the strategic aspects of Education within the Quintica Group covering development of programs, course material, certifications and vendor relationships.