Bio

Natalie is an experienced entrepreneur and business development professional with nearly two decades leading and growing organisations across Africa. Natalie earned her MBA from Saïd Business School at Oxford University where she focused on Entrepreneurship, served as co-Chair of the Africa Business Group, and was selected as a Skoll Associate with the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship. Natalie moved to South Africa in 2006 from Washington DC to start up the regional base for the global non-profit organisation (NPO) Operation Smile later becoming Vice President, Africa and then Vice President, Global Business Development. In 2013 Natalie started ZARUS Group a consultancy focused on supporting social businesses and NPOs with fundraising, strategic positioning, partnerships and scaling. Natalie’s clients have included Amref, The Business Bridge Initiative, Greenpeace Africa, MSF, Obama’s Young African Leaders Initiative, Oxfam, Salamanca Group, Save the Children, Social Enterprise Academy, BackaBuddy, Linkedto and Further (formerly Red Bull Amaphiko). In 2014 Natalie joined Impact Hub as Africa Lead to run the Seed Program supporting local entrepreneurs start Impact Hubs in their cities and to build partnerships across the region. In 2016 Natalie became Head of Expansion and Commercial Partnerships for Zoona, a FinTech OTC money transfer business focused on the unbanked. In April 2018, Natalie joined GreenFingers Mobile, an AgriTech focused on traceability in the value chain for small farmers, as CEO. After stepping down post overseeing the successful re-build of their SaaS platform and migration of existing clients, Natalie co-founded XRGlobal in late 2019, a virtual reality learning and development platform. XRGlobal is transforming training in emerging markets through the first online / offline VR platform that is being used across Africa and now Brazil and the Philippines. Natalie volunteered as a Facilitator for Grassroots Entrepreneurs in the informal settlements, was a mentor for Barclays’ Tech Africa Accelerator, Startupbootcamp, Social Enterprise Academy, and MAN Impact Accelerator. She currently is a coach for GIZ-SAIS, the Further and SAB Foundation SIA program and is an investor and advisor for Ugandan based e-commerce company Xente and South African AgriTech AgriKool. She supports in a volunteer capacity several NPOs and has coached dozens of start-ups and NPOs through the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation at UCT’s GSB. Natalie was selected Top 100 Women in FinTech by LATTICE80 and nominated for Women in Tech Startup Award.