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image Neil Brown
Chief Executive Officer

Neil was appointed as Citadel CEO in April 2008.

Neil began his career at Sanlam in Cape Town and was appointed as product and development manager of Sanlam Personal Portfolios in 1997. Neil joined Citadel in 1998 where he became actively involved in the development and setting up of Citadel Administration Services, Citadel’s linked-investment service provider. With the introduction of the business to the market in January 2000, Neil was appointed its Managing Director. Neil subsequently also helped establish Citadel Life, and became its Managing Director in June 2000.

Neil obtained a B.Sc in Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Port Elizabeth and completed a B.Com (Hons) in Actuarial Science in 1993. He also obtained a certificate in Actuarial Techniques from the Faculty of Actuaries in 1997.

image BM Griesel
Head of Wealth Management

BM is the Managing Director of Wealth Management at Citadel. He joined Citadel as a wealth manager in 1996 and was appointed Managing Director from 1997 to March 1999. From 1999 to 2005 BM was CEO of Deloitte Private Clients, a joint venture between Citadel and Deloitte.

BM started his career as a teacher before obtaining B.Com (Hon) and M.Com degrees in Economics in 1987 and 1989 respectively. In 1988 he started lecturing at the Economics Department of the Rand Afrikaans University (RAU). He obtained a D.Com degree in Economics in 1991, with a thesis on international economy, and was promoted to associate professor in the same year. In 1993 he became chairman of the Economics Department at RAU.

image Vaughan Pilkington
Head of Wealth Planning

As MD of Wealth Planning, Vaughan has nearly twenty years experience in the field of personal financial planning, and is a member of the Institute of Certified Financial Planners.

He qualified as a chartered accountant with Deloitte & Touche in 1984 and specialised in personal financial and tax planning after completing his articles. In 1992 he joined Alexander Forbes' Executive Financial Services division and was appointed a senior director in 1995. Vaughan joined Citadel in 1998.

image Jan van Niekerk
Chief Investment Officer
Jan is Citadel's Chief Investment Officer. He is a qualified actuary and a Chartered Financial Analyst. He obtained a B.Com (Hons) degree in Actuarial Science at Stellenbosch University in 1996 and joined Sanlam in 1997 as a member of the Investment Advisory Service of Sanlam Personal Portfolios. Jan was a member of the Gensec Asset Management team from 1999 to 2000, initially as an investment analyst and subsequently becoming responsible for managing the range of Wrap Funds for Sanlam Personal Portfolios. He was also co-portfolio manager of the Big Easy range of unit trusts. Jan joined Citadel as investment strategist in September 2000.
image Andries du Toit
Head of Operations

Andries began his extensive financial planning career in 1992, when he joined the Executive Financial Planning division at Alexander Forbes. He joined Citadel in 1998 and from 1999 headed the operations of Deloitte Private Clients, a joint venture between Citadel and Deloitte. He is currently Director of Operations at Citadel.

Andries qualified as a chartered accountant in 1992 after obtaining a B.Com degree from the University of Pretoria. He is a member of the Institute of Certified Financial Planners.

image Piet Swart
Financial Director

Piet joined Citadel in January 1997 as Financial Director. Prior to that he spent time at Deloitte in the UK as an audit manager before returning to Deloitte in SA where he became Senior Audit and Forensic Manager.

Piet qualified as a chartered accountant in 1992 after obtaining a B.Com (Hons) degree from the University of Pretoria.

image Joe Bester
Head of Prospecting

Joe joined Citadel as a Wealth Planner in February 1997. Interestingly, Joe was practicing as a veterinarian before he joined the business. As he was becoming more involved on the business side of his practice, he decided to do his MBA full time. During this time he was offered an opportunity to join Citadel and he accepted the challenge.

Joe currently heads up the prospecting team. He is passionate about helping to design financial roadmaps that meet families' specific needs.

image Wilhelm Söhnge
Head of Solutions, Development and Implementation

Wilhelm completed his graduate studies at the University of Stellenbosch and obtained his Honours degree in Accountancy in 1991 at the University of Johannesburg. In 1992 he joined Ernst & Young in Cape Town. Whilst with the firm he spent 8 months in Prague, Czech Republic. In 1995 he qualified as a Chartered Accountant (SA) and was appointed as financial manager at Sanlam Investment Management. He joined Citadel in July 1997 as a Wealth Manager and is now Head of Solutions, Development and Implementation.

Wilhelm is also a Certified Financial Planner, an Associate of the British Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), and a member of the US based CFA Institute from whom he earned the CFA designation.
image Rifke Gellman
Head of Legal

Rifke has a BA LLB degree from the University of Cape Town and has attained the Certified Financial Planner™ certification. She completed her term as a candidate attorney at Mallinicks (now Webber Wentzel incorporating Mallinicks) and was admitted as an attorney of the High Court in 1991. She then worked at The Southern Life Limited, where she became a senior manager in the legal department and gained experience in a broad range of financial services related businesses including retirement funds, long-term insurance and investments.

She began working at Citadel in 1999 and was initially employed to assist with setting up Citadel Administration Services and Citadel Life. She then went on to establish an in-house legal function for the Citadel group of companies and is now the head of Citadel’s legal department.
image Francois Fouche
Head of Citadel Trust Limited

Francois obtained the BLC and LLB degrees from the University of Pretoria and completed his articles at Pretoria firm Van der Merwe Du Toit Inc. He was admitted as attorney, conveyancer and notary of the High Court in 2003. In the same year he joined Naudes Inc. and was seconded to the joint venture between Naudes and Citadel.

That joint venture lead to the creation of Citadel Trust Limited. Francois also obtained a Diploma in Tax Practice from the University of Johannesburg and a LLM degree in estate law from the North-West University. Francois is the executive director of Citadel Trust Limited and is as such responsible for the fiduciary matters in the group.
image Caren Rennie
Head of Marketing and Client Care

With over 14 years' experience in the marketing space, Caren has been leading Citadel’s marketing team for over 10 years and is primarily responsible for brand and client service.

She qualified at the Pretoria Technikon with a National Diploma in PR and Communications and spent her first year developing her skills at a PR agency. Thereafter, she joined one of SA's biggest shopping centres to work in their communication department. She spent a year in London working in the marketing team of a well-known recruitment agency before returning to South Africa to join Citadel.

image Wikus du Plessis
Head of Information Technology Services

Wikus completed his B. Com degree at the University of Pretoria and started his career in IT in 1989, while doing his articles. Computerising the audit firm and providing consultation service to clients regarding the implementation of Information technology in their businesses, were his main focus areas. He completed his B.Compt (Hons) through Unisa in 1991, and worked within ABSA’s Information Technology division for a couple of years as a Business Analyst. He was appointed as IT Risk Manager for Momentum Life in 1996 after successfully completing his CISA qualification.

Wikus joined Citadel in 1999 and is responsible for the Information Technology in the group.

image Marina Knox
Head of Human Development

Marina began her relationship with Citadel in 1999 as an external consultant and was consequently approached to lead the Human Development Team in 2004.

Her main focus areas are the well-being of Citadel staff, building a unique internal culture within the company, strategising around people and their needs, overseeing skills development and transformation, recruitment and personal profiling.

Marina graduated with a Masters degree in Psychology in 1993 and ran her own psychology practice for ten years before joining Citadel.