Michael is a Non-executive Director of Ethos Capital.
Michael began his career in corporate finance at Deloitte & Touche and Standard Merchant Bank after which he spent four years in the United States with NationsBanc Capital Markets (now Bank of America), as a director of
structured capital markets.
In 1997, he joined RMB to help build its private equity division. He was instrumental in growing the bank’s private equity division and led the bank’s initiative to spin out Ethos (where he sat as a director for a number
of years). He was a director of the bank’s private equity business, RMB Ventures, responsible for initiating and leading various on-balance-sheet investments. He also sat on the bank’s investment committee responsible
for all private equity and principle investing decisions.
In 2000, he was appointed CEO at RMB and during his tenure (2000 to 2008) pretax profits grew eightfold. Throughout this period he continued to be involved in large private equity decisions and served as chairperson
of RMB Corvest Proprietary Limited.
Post-RMB, he has been involved in building a brand business, including a health and beauty business called CaviBrands Proprietary Limited, and turning around a fashion business called New House of Busby. Furthermore, he and Derek Prout-Jones invest through a private company, 4 Decades Capital, into long-term investment opportunities that typically fall outside the scope of traditional private equity.
He remained on the RMB and FNB divisional boards until 2017.
He holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Cape Town and an MBA from Duke University (Duke Fuqua Scholar) and was a member of SAICA.