For the past 30 years Mark James Lamberti (61) B Com (Unisa), MBA (Wits) PPL (Harvard) has served in an executive or non executive capacity on the Boards of various public companies in the retail, technology, media, and telecommunications fields and as chairman or a director of a number of industry associations and educational institutions.

On the 1st July 2007, after serving for almost 19 years as the architect, leader and, until recently, the largest private shareholder of Massmart Holdings Limited, Mark retired as Deputy Chairman and Chief Executive to become non-executive Chairman of the Board.

With sales approaching R40b per annum, Massmart is Africa’s third largest and the most profitable retailer of consumer goods, employing 22 000 people in 238 stores in 14 sub Saharan countries. In 2007 Massmart was ranked by Deloitte as 140th of the 250 largest retailers in the world, of which it was the 15th fastest growing over the previous five years and it was recently named as the Financial Mail Top Company of 2008.

In addition to various directorships, Mark is currently non-executive Chairman of Business Against Crime South Africa, and non-executive Chairman of the Advisory Board of Wits Business School, where he is an Honorary Adjunct Professor of Business Administration.

Lamberti’s achievements have been widely acknowledged throughout his career, most notably as the 2001 winner of the Ernst & Young South Africa’s Best Entrepreneur Award and the 2004 winner of the Italian South African Businessman of the Year award.

After matriculating in 1982, Frans studied law at RAU (now University of Johannesburg) qualifying as a lawyer in 1987. After he studied Computer Science, Frans joined Blakes Attorneys as a director in 1991 and pioneered the first electronic link between an attorneys firm and a bank, facilitating handovers with Bankorp during the same year.  Frans specialised in Credit Law and mainly worked with a variety of banks. He trained the ABSA Credit Card managers and served on a task team which re-engineered and implemented Nedbank’s Credit and Recovery policies and procedures.

He also worked with ABSA in the design of their policies on the OCS (Online Collection System).  He also worked with Telkom and the SABC in the design of collection strategies and designed systems facilitating electronic handovers and payments.

In 1997 he started Munnik Basson and Associates, a law firm with six staff members, specialising in credit and debt recovery. Frans now focuses on MBD Credit Solutions strategic development and ensures that MBD Credit Solutions' clients are overwhelmed by its service and performance.

Charl is a qualified Chartered Accountant (SA). He completed his articles at Coopers Theron du Toit, now PriceWaterhouseCoopers, from 1990 to 1993.

From 1993 to 2000, Charl practiced as a registered auditor and accountant at Kruger and Co, where he was admitted as a partner in the practice.  One of his clients was MBD Credit Solutions and following professional work for MBD Credit Solutions, he joined the group as Chief Financial Officer in May 2000.  In October 2005 Charl took over the reigns as Chief Executive Officer, a position he currently holds.

Winnie has more than 23 years of high productivity experience in business. 15 years of which have been spent in supervision and management of other resources including people.  She has an excellent ability to work with people from different sectors of society - from judge to street sweeper.

She has carved her own successful career working with corporations (Liberty Life, Anglo American), banks (The World Bank and Nedbank/Nedcor), foundations (Liberty Life and African Bank) and non-governmental organisations – locally and internationally.

Winnie is a trustee of three non-profit boards – Aggrey Klaaste Nation Building Projects, Hantam Community Trust and Business Arts South Africa.  She  is a founding member and director of Classic FM South Africa. She started the African Bank Foundation from scratch, managing director of a Micro Finance company specialising in provision of finance for low cost housing; started and managed a microfinance company geared to lending money to small  and micro enterprises. Her experience in financial education of the masses is inspiring. She produced and conducted an hour long financial management conversations on  Thetha FM, a community radio station.

Winnie studied Business Management at The University of Witwatersrand, attained a post graduate qualifications from GIMT, and attended the Senior Executive Program Harvard Business School in Boston USA.

Jonathan Jawno B Com (UCT), Graduate Diploma in Accounting (UCT) is a Chartered Accountant who completed his articles at Arthur Andersen in 1990.

Jonathan co-founded financial services entity Stratvest in 1995 with friend, Michael Mendelowitz.  In 1997, African Bank Investments Limited (ABIL), at the time called Theta Financial Services Limited, acquired 50% of Stratvest, leading to the formation of Nisela Growth Investments.  Jonathan held the position of joint CEO of Nisela until 2002, when it was integrated into ABIL.  Together with Rob Rossi, Jonathan and Michael went on to acquire and grow the group of companies that were merged with Steven Kark's Kanderlane Group in 2006 to form Transaction Capital.  Jonathan says, "My vision for Transaction Capital is to build an entrepreneurial group that effectively targets non-traditional and specialised financial services opportunities."

Michael Mendelowitz B Comm. (UCT), Graduate Diploma in Accounting (UCT) a qualified Chartered Accountant (SA) who completed his articles at Deloitte & Touche in 1990.

Michael has developed, over many years, the skill in identifying great owner managed companies. Historically these companies have been niche operations within the financial services sector; "We work closely with management to achieve dominant position within those niches."

His experience as joint CEO of Nisela for over 5 years taught him to recognise and implement growth strategies, a skill he utilises today for Transaction Capital. Michael's experience has taught him what can come from focused value creation: "The easy part is the acquisition. The trick is taking these high growth businesses and working with management to build sustainable and robust business models. At the end of the day, we will be judged by our ongoing ability to build businesses that consistently produce high risk adjusted returns. If we get all this right, then Transaction Capital will be a highly rated organisation by all stakeholders."

Executive Committee (EXCO):

Chief Executive Officer:  Charl van der Walt - B Acc;  Hon. B Acc;  CA(SA)

Chief Financial Officer:  Lance Brebnor - B.Compt (Hons);  CTA Degree;  Dip - Auditing;  CA(SA)

Divisional Executive - Legal Collections:   Carl de Villiers - B Acc;  B Acc Hons;  CA(SA); ACMA

Divisional Executive - Contingency Collections:  Lulu de Beer - BA Law & Politics;  Hon International Politics

Divisional Executive - Principal Collections:  Bertus Kapp - BA admin Hons; MBA

Commercial Executive:  Adam Cox - CA(SA)

Human Capital Executive:  Nischal S. Khandai - B Comm; ADLL. (Bus. Law); PGP (HRM) (UK)

Business Development Executive:  Stephan Venter - (BSc)

Information, Technology and Communications Executive:  Derek McCallum

Client Relationship Executive:  Maheshini Naidoo - B Paed Arts

Business Knowledge Executive:  David Challies -