Nico Ackermann
(Director)
Nico started his career as an article clerk at PKF (then Fisher Hoffman Stride) in Cape Town in 1995. After completing his articles he remained on at the firm as a senior audit manager. During this time he was involved in numerous listings. Nico gained in-depth experience in governance and consulted on many transactions within the listed environment. He left the firm in 2004 to join a listed venture capital holding company as the group financial director.
After leaving the listed environment Nico ran his own consulting company specialising in governance and sustainable strategy development and implementation.
Most recently Nico was director of Capital Markets in Corporate Finance at Grant Thornton where, among other things, he consulted on the formation of the Seychelles stock exchange and was a key member of the team that wrote the listing requirements.
Nico has extensive experience across multiple industries including: property, packaging, biotech, agriculture, financial services and mining. He has served as executive and non-executive director of both listed and unlisted public and private companies.
When dealing with new applicants to list and with existing listed clients Nico can draw on his years of experience on both sides of this relationship.
Daniel Carter
(Director)
Daniel joined Goldman Sachs investment bank in London as a graduate in 1997. Starting out on the “sell’’ side of the bank he moved across to the “buy” side where he joined the European Active Equity group as part of Goldman Sachs Asset Management. In 2003, Daniel left London for Cape Town, South Africa and formed a venture capital consulting business with colleagues. He went on to consult to international businesses looking to enter the South African and Sub-Saharan market across different sectors, although maintained a bias towards financial services throughout.
Since arriving in South Africa, he has been involved in the establishment and growth of a number of ventures as both stakeholder and investor spanning: securitisation, quantitative asset management, hedge fund, derivatives broking, trading technology and professional education. After starting his career in banking Daniel specialises in business strategy and capital raising for small to medium sized businesses as well as wealth management and investment strategies for high net worth clients.
Carmen Turner
(Director and Compliance Officer)
Carmen qualified as a Chartered Accountant (SA) completing her three-year Training Contract with Grant Thornton in 2014. During her time at Grant Thornton she gained exposure to a number of sectors including financial services, manufacture, hospitality, compliance and agriculture and received numerous awards and accolades for her achievements there.
In 2015 Carmen joined Velocity Trade South Africa and PKF Capital Markets (then Direct Markets Africa). She was appointed as CFO of Velocity Trade South Africa for the period 2017 to 2019 and after joining PKF full time at the beginning of 2020 was appointed as a director of PKF Capital Markets. During this time, Carmen has gained experience in corporate finance, capital markets, listing sponsor advisory, financial services, financial management, business administration and compliance, among others.
Carmen has successfully passed all three Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) examinations, with the third and final examination being completed in 2017.
Justin Porteous
(Director)
After 6 years as a hydrological engineer and 5 years of running his own business Justin found his passion in financial services as a wealth manager. Since gaining his first couple years of experience in high net worth advisory he joined the PKF Seychelles Group to manage client relations and grow towards institutional asset management.
Justin now manages the relationships of not only our clients but also the investment and fund managers that incorporate the Fixed income Bond investment team.