The Brenthurst Team

Christopher Thompson

Christopher Thompson holds a Master’s Degree in Strategic Management from the University of Derby, completed the Program for Management Development at Harvard Business School and is studying for a master’s degree in business administration at Wits Business School. He began his career at Barclays Bank, mainly on risk management, business process re-engineering, outsourcing, business linkages and special purposes financial programs including micro finance, savings & credit schemes, community banks etc Initiated the first micro finance and small business finance schemes in a commercial bank in Zimbabwe, and led the writing of the piece of legislation on MFI’s and small business. Later he joined Anglo American Corporation as a Director and General Manager of Hawk Ventures Ltd and in this capacity sat on various boards and spearheaded outsourcing in the Anglo American Group. During this time he chaired the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries Linkages Program (linkages between large corporates and the small business sector). Later he joined Bindura Nickel Corporation as a Business Development Manager where he put together and successfully introduced a productivity incentive scheme which had an immediate positive impact on the business. His last post before joining the Foundation was Administration Manager of E. Oppenheimer & Son responsible for global family assets and global insurance portfolio and administration of the SA office. He is a Director and Deputy Chairperson of Debshan Ranches, and a member of the Institute of Risk Management South Africa and the Institute of Directors Zimbabwe. He has previously served as a director of 48 companies in the financial sector (where he chaired the risk and remuneration committees), chaired several MFI’s and SME funding institutions, manufacturing, and not for profit sectors and was also the treasurer of the Association of Project Managers in Zimbabwe. He is at present a Research and Administration Manager at the Brenthurst Foundation.