Darren Isaacs

Founder & CEO

Darren is on a mission with his team at Makosi to change the way public accounting firms deliver work. This requires our clients to go global and on-demand with resourcing strategies, operate virtually as well as forge automation and data analytics strategies. His mantra is "get your hands dirty, figure things out, keep it simple and never give up."

Paul Emery

CXO

At the age of 28, Paul rode a motorcycle around the world. While he was riding, he thought about quitting almost every day. But despite the bad weather, brushes with the law, mental and physical fatigue, he kept going. Today, Paul puts that perseverance to work as a member of the Makosi leadership team by delivering exceptional service and experiences to our clients.

David Madden

Head of Transaction Advisory

David is an entrepreneur and considers himself lucky to have been a leader in multiple 8 figure revenue businesses. His passion is in solving problems, creating win-win partnerships, and realizing the positive impact organizations can have on people, both inside and outside their businesses.

Tim Bruno

CRO

Kevin Kletz

COO

Kevin is an experienced finance and operations executive with a varied industry background including real estate, sports & entertainment and financial services. He ensures that our teams are able to consistently deliver to our clients in a compliant and effective manner.

Pieter Strydom

Head of Product

As a technology entrepreneur and former external auditor at Ernst & Young, Pieter uses his knowledge and experience to provide clients with technology they want. By leveraging industry leading product development practices, UX/UI design thinking, robotic process automation and AI, we’re building product to accelerate innovation in the audit industry.

Leana Marais

Head of Operations and Special Projects SA

With a track record of successful operational execution at an executive level, Leana is well equipped to develop innovative plans across all facets of the business to meet strategic goals. She is a progress-driven planner adept at developing and leveraging relationships, cultivating high performing teams and promoting a culture of continuous improvement.

Cindy Botha

Head of People

Cindy is an experienced People Leader boasting with varied industry background and experience, most of which were acquired as an Experienced Talent professional at one of the leading big 4 auditing firms before expanding her global & Africa experience at a UK based NGO. She brings to Makosi her expertise and experience, which ranges across several core enabling talent capabilities. She is driven by her passion for people, purpose driven impact and innovative pragmatic people strategies.

Graham Paulsen

Talent Acquisition Manager

Graham is an experienced recruitment manager with over 10 years of expertise, the bulk of which was acquired at South Africa's largest specialist recruitment firm. He has grown and lead teams across the Finance, IT and Risk fields and received various awards and accolades as a recruitment specialist and manager. He holds a BCom Marketing Management from the University of Pretoria and an ISPr designation with APSO.

Ryan Najmulski

Client Success Manager

Ryan Najmulski has worked closely with audit, advisory, and financial services firms for over 8 years. After receiving his degree in marketing and finance, he lived in New York City and worked at a Fortune 500 company helping c-suite leaders with talent solutions. After New York City, Ryan lived in Bermuda and partnered with Big 4 and global reinsurance firms on projects and hiring related to accounting and finance initiatives. Ryan brings in-depth experience and a consultative approach to help audit leaders with workforce strategy and talent solutions. He currently resides in Denver, Colorado with his wife and red husky and is an outdoors enthusiast.

Stan Kobrin

Technical Product Manager

Henriette Backstrom

Development Manager

Dana Naidoo

Product QA Manager

As a Chartered Accountant with 6+ years audit experience turned Product QA Manager, Dana is able to bring the same detail-orientated approach to quality assurance on Makosi's product releases as she's done on audit engagements. Dana is passionate about building technology that works as it should, and delivering tested, intuitive and user-friendly product to our clients.

Nadia van Coller

Quality Assurance Software Tester

Nadia is a Quality Assurance Software Tester who is passionate about ensuring that high quality software solutions are delivered to business stakeholders in supporting daily operations. The QA world is not just about finding defects, but also about ensuring that the developed product will be effective and meet the needs of business stakeholders, while ensuring that new developed features can co-exist and complement current product and processes. As a QA, it is therefore critical for Nadia to think outside of the box, understand business needs and ensure that use scenarios are catered for and met while following the correct and valued processes in the Software Testing Life Cycle.

Ashleigh Forster

Lead Business Analyst

As a business analyst you need to be comfortable with the unknown and “making sense” in the chaos. Ashleigh ensures that requirements are clear from both the development team and the business stakeholder’s perspectives, so that we can deliver the best features to our users. She is passionate about optimizing process and bringing teams together to work towards a common goal.

Karin Wessels

Senior Business Analyst

For the past 14 years, Karin has worked as a Financial Analyst, Business Analyst and Product owner across the technology and financial service sectors . She is a detailed-orientated planner, focused on delivering value to the business by gaining a good understanding of the requirements and objectives

Micara Marajh

Business Analyst

Micara completed her BSc in Computer Science Honours at the University of Cape Town. She has 2+ years experience as a Business Analyst in the Financial Services industry. She loves finding interesting and exciting ways of leveraging technology to solve problems. She is passionate about developing technical solutions in order to meet business needs.

Stefan Rossouw

Business Analyst

Stefan is a Business Analyst currently working cross-functionally with the Makosi Product team to design, develop and deploy strategies for the business environment. As a Business Analyst, he aims to effectively evaluate system performances, identifying key indicators, and discover how changes in operations will improve results. He is passionate about translating user requirements into easily understandable documents, analysis, and insights that in turn drive high impact business decisions.

Darryl Kletz

Data Analyst & PowerBI Developer

Grant Barnard

Front-end & UX Developer

Farai Mrape

Full Stack Developer

Farai has been in the software engineering space for a long time. He is committed to continuous professional and personal development in everything he undertakes. He has a relentless drive to solve complex problems through simple intuitive technical solutions. Farai is a techie at heart, and passionate about all things empowerment.

Estelle Naidoo

PHP Support Developer

Estelle completed her BSc in Computer Science and IT at the University of KwaZulu Natal. She has 3 years’ experience as developer and worked as a PHP developer at one of South Africa’s leading capital markets research firm. Estelle is passionate about technology and finding new ways to improve business with fresh, more efficient solutions.

Marcus Soobiah

IT Support Manager

Stephanie Bührer

Change Manager

As a change specialist and people enthusiast who thrives on undertaking new challenges, Stephanie uses her experience in Marketing, Research, Project and Change Management, to craft out-of-the-box solutions that work. With a background in management consulting, her focus is on using innovation and insights to ensure that positive, enduring behavioural and cultural changes are achieved so that we can continue to help our clients achieve new heights and create more room to grow.

Ana Fallon

Client Success Manager

Ana is a seasoned Client Success Manager and has worked with hundreds of clients to help them realize their goals and initiatives. She graduated from Coles College of Business at Kennesaw State University with a Business Degree, with a concentration in marketing. Ana brings in-depth experience and a consultative approach to help audit leaders with workforce strategy and talent solutions.

Adriaan van der Hout

Engagement Manager

An experienced Audit Manager with experience in among others, the following sectors: Pharmaceutical, manufacturing, energy, media and financial services. He has exposure on a local and international level, gaining invaluable experience in London and Amsterdam before returning to South Africa. He has a passion for managing, coaching and working in diverse and dynamic team environments while delivering high quality output on projects. Adriaan finds meaning in making connections and growing client relationships.

Amy Brodkin

Engagement Manager

Amy is a Chartered Accountant and a former KPMG South Africa Manager with 5+ years of experience in external audit, specializing in financial instrument valuation. She has gained experience in the financial services, real estate, renewable energy, and technology sectors. She has worked in Brussels and has lived her passion by travelling the world. Amy is agile, innovative, and focused on delivering quality to our clients.

Dewald Rupping

Engagement Manager

Dewald is a Chartered Accountant who brings a wealth of audit knowledge and experience to Makosi. He has a passion for people and building meaningful relationships with teams and clients alike. Dewald works well with diverse teams and encourages them as far as possible. He is focused on collaboration amongst team members and ensuring teams achieve quality results.

Ahmed Saheb

Engagement Manager

Ahmed has over 6 years of external audit experience within the Financial Services sector. He has also worked in Luxembourg where he gained international audit experience within the Real Estate sector. Ahmed is passionate about learning and development and ensures that audit teams are well equipped to run efficient audits with exceptional client delivery. Ahmed is a problem solver who thrives in high-pressure environments and works well with diverse teams to achieve quality results.

Jason Naidoo

Engagement Manager

Jason is a Chartered Accountant and former EY Manager from the professional practice group. He specialized in consultations on technical matters, project management, liaising with regulators as well as the learning and development of various levels of staff. Jason has experience in auditing various industries in South Africa as well as in the manufacturing and distribution sector in the US, Minneapolis. Being innovative and results driven, he is great with collaborating and building relationships to facilitate an exceptional client experience.

Jennifer Lebethe

Engagement Manager

Jennifer is a former Deloitte audit manager, with over 4 year's experience, having worked across various industries including financial services, manufacturing and technology in South Africa as well as in Boston, Massachusetts. When she's not managing high-performing audit teams for our clients, Jennifer helps drive Makosi's impact initiatives forward.

Jessica Makua

Engagement Manager

Jessica Makua is a young, driven, dedicated, and qualified CA who is passionate about community service. She started her young career as an Academic Trainee at Monash University, after which she joined one of the big 4 firms where she was granted early sign off and qualified as a CA in 2019. After qualifying Jessica took on a secondment to McLean, VA for a 5-months. She remained in the US for two years after which she relocated back to South Africa where she furthered her audit career within consulting firms. Jessica enjoys collaborating with team members and her drive and passion to deliver effective audit engagements with our clients is her number one goal.

Kubendran Sigamoney

Engagement Manager

Kubendran is an experienced audit manager, with strong professional experience in Internal Audit, External Audit, US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), IFRS and Income Tax. Kubendran has worked on several audit projects across the US, including New York, Florida and California. He's passionate about delivering the most professional and effective audit engagements to our clients.

Muhammed Ebrahim

Engagement Manager

Muhammed is a dynamic financial services professional with extensive experience in the Banking and Real Estate industries from his time at a big 4 firm and Luxembourg. He was also a member of the Financial Engineering Group at his previous company which specialises in the valuation and audit of financial instruments. He is passionate about information technology and has a working understanding of Python and T-SQL. Muhammed is an innovative individual who enjoys collaborating with team members in order to meet a common goal efficiently.

Seth Gordon

Engagement Manager

Seth is a Chartered Accountant and former EY audit manager, with 4+ years of external and digital audit experience. With his varied industry experience gained on multinational audits in the manufacturing, real estate and technology sectors, Seth is able to thrive in high-pressure, deadline-driven environments, where he helps our audit teams successfully deliver on challenging and complex audits.

Carly Choffo

Marketing Manager

Carly is an experienced marketing and business development professional with over 4 year's experience building brands and driving business growth. Carly is passionate about creating meaningful and insightful content for our clients, helping them take advantage of opportunities and thrive in challenging business environments.

Lerato Monyane

Marketing Assistant

As a brand and marketing enthusiast, Lerato carries her brand building foundation with the set of skills she has to operate marketing ideas in a creative dynamic. The epitome is to develop realistic and integrated brand communication plans as well as objectives to drive the concept of strategic marketing.

Mankwe Motimele

Marketing Assistant

Mankwe is a passionate Marketer and Entrepreneurship Enthusiast with experience in Marketing, Program Management, Small Business Development and Office/Legal Administration. She is incredibly passionate about accelerating change in marginalized communities and lives by the mission to discover, share and amplify impact. Before joining Makosi, she worked with over 65 Small Businesses and 10 Non-Profit Organizations, helping them identify growth opportunities and amplify their impact through innovative Marketing and Strategy solutions. She holds a BCom degree in Marketing Management, and an Honours in Entrepreneurship & Small Business Management.

Kassidy Martin

Executive Assistant to Paul Emery

Kassidy is a detail oriented, list making enthusiast and self proclaimed perfectionist. These characteristics have lead her to a career heavy in her strengths as an executive assistant. She has spent a near decade organizing chaos as an EA and project coordinator, occasionally using her penchant for perfect grammar & punctuation on marketing and communication briefs.

Robert Betts

Community Manager

Robert is a career consultant to Chartered Accountants with global experience within international consulting groups based in UK, South Africa, Bermuda and Cayman Islands. With more than 10 years’ combined experience in the accounting and recruitment industry, he's uniquely placed to understand both the consultants and client by identifying top talent for our international client base.

Yejna Gangadin

People & Talent Manager: Audit

Yejna has over 7 years' experience within the HR space across different business areas at a multinational consulting firm. Academically she has a legal background with a focus in labour and risk, however her passion lies with people and the evolving workforce. Yejna prides herself in her ability to connect with people and to motivate a team to collaborate, focus and to drive a common goal. She is a life-long learner and interested in growing her skill set across different industries and regions.

Rene Oostendurp

Internal Enablement Manager

Rene is an experienced senior talent enthusiast with over 14 years recruitment experience. Rene has gained experience in building and growing strategic talent sourcing capabilities which includes talent mapping expertise and talent insights. She also has vast experience in managing and growing new teams, project managing innovative recruitment solutions as well as learning and development. She is an advocate for aligning your talent strategy to the new ways of working as well as skills of the future and has a special interest in collaborative intelligence - Human, technology, and AI.

Alryn Appalsamy

Fulfillment Specialist

As an accomplished accounting professional with 5+ years of audit experience under his belt, Alryn has worked on several audit projects across the US, servicing clients in New York City and San Francisco. Having worked abroad, he brings keen insight and a unique perspective to the talent team’s recruiting function, ensuring that the standard of consultants serving our clients are always of the highest quality.

Cara Van Wyk

Fulfillment Specialist

Cara’s passion and motivations lie in facilitating people ascertain their goals and dreams. She has demonstrated this over many years in the recruitment space, with a vast network and knowledge in the accounting industry. She takes immense pride in her deliverables and finds satisfaction in the success of matching business requirements with her specialist fulfillment capabilities.

Lance Adams

Fulfillment Specialist

Lance is a highly successful recruiter, with 6+ years' experience in the finance recruitment industry. He brings his experience and unique insights to the talent team, ensuring that Makosi delivers exceptional talent and an unparalleled experience for our clients.

Mandy De Beer

Fulfillment Specialist

Mandy is an experienced recruiter with over 10 years expertise. The majority of her experience was acquired at South Africa’s largest specialist recruitment firm. She has experience across the finance function and has received many awards and accolades as a recruitment specialist. She brings her experience and unique insights to the talent team, ensuring that Makosi delivers exceptional talent and an unparalleled experience for our clients.

Marlé Weideman

Fulfillment Specialist

Marlé is an experienced Recruiter with over 7 years of expertise, mainly within the financial recruitment space. After completing her bachelor’s in commerce in Financial Management she started her articles and soon discovered her passion for people, and this is when recruitment found her. As a recruiter, she is passionate about changing people lives and maintaining strong relationships to ensure optimal results are achieved for Makosi and our clients.

Taryn Hickman

Fulfillment Specialist

Taryn is a highly experienced recruiter with 13+ years of experience within the Finance niche. She holds a BA degree in HR & Industrial Psychology and is a ISPr APSO member. She has won multiple awards throughout her career and thrives on building and maintaining strong relationships in both internal and external teams, in order to achieve optimal results, for Makosi and our clients. 

Tatika Scullard

Fulfillment Specialist

Tatika joins Makosi with 12 years experience within Talent Acquisition, specializing in professional services. She is passionate about meeting client needs and delivering to make an impact. Her focus and authenticity has won her Best Company Representative in the graduate recruitment space and she brings this energy to the Makosi family.

Firdows Suleman

Talent Specialist Lead

Firdows is a skilled Recruiter and Trainer with over 12 years recruitment experience, specializing in placing financial professionals. Her expertise lies in people strategy and implementation for success. Her motto is upskill, uplift and get the job done!

Corne Booysen

Talent Specialist

A recruiter with 22+ years' experience, Corne holds an Honours Degree in Industrial Psychology from the University from Pretoria. The majority of Corne’s experience has been in the recruitment industry, mainly in the South African market. She has consulted and led teams across the finance spectrum and gained experience in managing a team in the IT space. Corne is passionate about business, consulting, managing & empowering staff, and more recently, how to transform companies for the digital era.

Dipen Nagindas

Talent Specialist

Dipen has a background in business and audit/accounting spanning over 10 years. He brings unique insight in identifying the perfect talent to serve our clients based on their needs. He takes immense pride in meeting deliverables and allowing professionals around him room to grow.

Dylan Janos

Talent Specialist

Dylan has a BCom degree in Economics and has passed CFA level 1. He strives to build and strengthen relationships via networking and connections. Dylan is invested in coaching and sharing his knowledge and skills with our community members as a Talent Specialist at Makosi. His professional and strong linguistic acumen allows him to engage with talent from all corners of the world.

Jaquie Otto

Talent Specialist

Jaquie is a driven recruitment professional with 11+ years in the industry. She is skilled in business growth and managing, leading, and coaching consultants to succeed in a highly competitive and corporate environment.  Jaquie holds qualifications in Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Life Coaching. She is passionate about changing lives for the better and recruitment allows for the most purposeful way to achieve this. 

Kgaogelo Masemene

Talent Specialist

Kgaogelo has a passion for working with people and she has followed that passion by joining the Talent Acquisition space. Her journey in Talent Acquisition dates back 14 years, between Deloitte and PwC. She is passionate about the development of others and helping our community members live their potential.

Louani Bouwer

Talent Specialist

Louani is a skilled recruiter with over 8 years' experience gained with one of South Africa's largest specialist recruitment agencies. She specialized in the sourcing of Chartered Accountants as well as Account Management. She holds an ISP designation with APSO. Louani is passionate about guiding our consultants through the process and ensuring that they are client ready.

Megan Nielson

Talent Specialist

A driven and resourceful individual, Megan holds qualifications in both Psychology and Marketing. Megan is passionate about people and aiding in the development of strategies that will best further them towards their short and long-term career goals. With a background rooted in TAS & Professional Services Recruitment, a vast network and knowledge of the industry, Megan believes that people are the most important aspect of any organization's success and advancement.

Tanya Aab

Talent Specialist

Tanya is a skilled finance recruiter, with a passion for people. Her skill set in aligning finance professionals with the right career opportunities was gained with one of the largest listed recruitment agencies in South Africa, having sourced for roles in audit, forensic specialists, utilities, and finance lecturers. Her experience comes from various industries, including fashion, where she has created and developed her own fashion brand. She brings an element of professionalism and a need in investing in our long-term relationships with our clients.

Kagiso Smouse

Talent Coordinator

Kagiso is a Human Resources Specialist with several years of successful experience in Hiring and Employee Management. Kagiso has a keen interest in Talent Acquisition Technologies, Talent Profiling and Employer Branding. He has worked for three of the Big 4 Audit Firms, most recently as an Assistant Manager in Talent Acquisition at EY.

Palesa Dibakwane

Talent Specialist

Palesa is a finance recruitment specialist from one of South Africa’s largest recruitment firms. She holds an Honours in Business Management from University of Pretoria and an ISRr designation with APSO. Her greatest passion is helping people and being a solution to her world. She has a large social media following where she is dedicated to motivating people to reach their goals.

Udisha Mohangi

Talent Specialist

A true passion for people and purpose, Udisha holds an Honors Degree in Human Resources and is an experienced Talent Specialist. Majority of her experience lie in finance recruitment across various industries including Financial Services, Banking, Manufacturing, FMCG, Retail, Mining, Pharmaceuticals and Logistics. Not only is Udisha top talent, but she is also able to mentor, lead and train top talent in the recruitment industry in her unique and humble approach. More recently she has gained exposure in head hunting and securing exceptional talent for her clients internationally and exposing her top candidates to great career opportunities within the African, United States and European markets. Her strategic mindset allows her to analyze the business enabling her to streamline processes and contribute greatly as a Talent Partner to any organization.

Bryony van Zyl

Experience & Culture Manager

Bryony has spent the last 5 years as the HR & Talent lead for the Johannesburg cluster of Publicis agencies. Prior to that she was a Business Unit director in Client services for an ad agency. Bryony has extensive experience working with people, helping businesses solve human capital challenges, curating employee experiences, and building strategic projects that create end-to-end solutions.

Allison Visagie

Journey Advocate

Allison has over 5 years extensive experience within HR. She has completed her honours in Bcom Human Resource Management at North - West University and started her career at one of South Africa’s largest Financial Services companies. Her focus has been in performing skills audits, change management initiatives, and organizational design, both in the public and private sector. The consulting environment has allowed her to enhance her skill set and establish herself as an experienced management associate.

Aneesa Beeky

Journey Advocate

Aneesa’s passion for working with auditors and accountants can be traced back to 2006. She brings over 15 years of experience to her role, including mentoring over 250 young professionals embark and complete their dream of becoming qualified auditors/accountants. Her ethos is, undoubtedly, her dedication and passion for adding a personal touch to each of their journeys in order to make their experience rewarding, memorable, and fun, whilst encouraging and supporting each individual to be the best version of themselves. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting and is currently completing her Postgraduate Diploma in Human Resources Management.

Koketso Motau

Journey Advocate

Koketso has over 3 years strong workforce administrative, onboarding and offboarding experience within the Big 4 Audit firms. She is very passionate about excellence on service delivery and her portfolio includes not only South Africa , but Africa at large.

Chelsea Dearham

Journey Advocate

Chelsea is a skilled Recruiter and HR Generalist. She holds a Btech Degree in Human Resources Management as well as Bcom Honours in Industrial and Organisational Psychology. She has worked in various industries including audit, financial services and freight and logistics which has allowed her to grow her network range for recruitment purposes. She brings to Makosi her years of experience in guiding individuals to achieve their personal and career goals.

Marco Pienaar

Journey Advocate

Marco is an experienced people professional with a background spanning across numerous industries throughout his consulting career. He is a self-motivated and critical thinking individual who is driven by people initiatives and data driven, fact-based problem solving. Marco brings with an innovative, people-focused, practical approach to Makosi's people strategies.

Palesa Phetla

Journey Advocate

Palesa is a Human Capital expert with 5 years of HR Generalist experience. She obtained her BA Communications degree from the University of Limpopo. She is a passionate HR professional who understands the people dynamic and supports individuals to embrace their talents as well as be a better version of themselves, leaving people feeling empowered.

Parfait Ngoie

Journey Advocate

Parfait's passion lies in building and driving consultants towards their goals and aspirations. His enthusiasm working with people, coupled with his 7 years' experience in the accounting, audit and finance industry, makes him the ideal candidate to work alongside our workforce in helping them achieve their personal and career objectives. Parfait takes pride in matching client requirements with consultant expectations and thrives in high pressure environments, where he helps audit and TAS consultants deliver exceptional quality.

Samiksha Sukdeo

Journey Advocate

Samiksha has 7 years of overall HR experience in various organizations, with 3 years of HR experience at one of the largest multinational consulting firms. She has an Honours Degree in Industrial Psychology and is an outgoing individual that is goal driven and people focused. Her passion for working with people coupled with her strong industry knowledge makes her the ideal candidate to work together with our employees to help them achieve their personal and career objectives.

Shelby Wilson

Journey Advocate

Shelby is an experienced accounting professional with 5 years of audit experience, as well as 2+ years' experience as a Senior Accountant and Financial Manager. Her passion for working with people, coupled with her remarkable interpersonal skills and intimate knowledge of the journey of an accounting professional, makes her ideally placed to guide experienced and young professionals alike through their career with Makosi.

Winnie Sepeng

Journey Advocate : TAS

Winnie is a registered Industrial Psychologist whose short career of 6 years has been a diverse & exciting one in the financial industry. She attains lecturing, project change management, HR & Organisational Development experience where she focused on HR all centres of excellence work & OD work. Her love for attaining diverse knowledge & experience had enabled her to grasp to help build organisations become great places to work. She is passionate about organisational effectiveness and being part of people’s journey to growth.

Amy Josset

Journey Advocate Coordinator

Amy is a highly organized and meticulous professional with 10 years’ experience within administration and procurement roles. She offers advanced planning and coordination skills, as well as expertise in optimizing processes, negotiating terms and managing documentation. Amy is committed to productivity and performance improvement and to provide a full capability offering in administration activities.

Mpho Kuenane

Journey Advocate Coordinator

Mpho is a skilled HR Generalist with 6+ years HR experience. She has worked in small to large organizations in the Hospitality, Financial and IT industries. Mpho completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in Organizational Psychology and a Postgraduate Diploma in Management, both from WITS University. She is passionate about people and creating an amazing experience for our community members.

Fortunate Ntombela

Recruitment Coordinator

Fortunate is an HR Professional, with Talent Acquisition experience from various sectors namely: Technology, Financial and Mining. She recently completed a BCom Honours Degree in Human Resource Management. She is passionate about people and assisting her team with finding top talent within the audit field.