CASIDRA WELCOMES THE NEW CEO: ASHLEY SEYMOUR

Casidra’s Board, Management and Staff have pleasure in welcoming its new Chief Executive Officer, Mr Ashley Seymour effective from 4th of March 2019. Mr Seymour is a Chartered Accountant (South Africa) who spent much of his career in development financing & Impact investing and is a seasoned Executive as well as Non-Executive Board member in both the public and private sectors.  He is a passionate South African, born and mostly raised in the rural parts of the Eastern Cape. He is the youngest of seven children, a practicing Catholic, and father to three teenagers.

Mr Seymour is also a South African Reserve Bank accredited Non-Executive Director and his work experience includes Non-executive appointments where he has served on a number of Boards. He is a results-orientated industry thought leader, pioneering and managing cross border business solutions spanning over 25 years of experience in multiple industries primarily financial services, to create value, drive business development with a strong focus in corporate finance & advisory services, capital raising, cross border and domestic IPO’s, International Financial reporting standards, due diligence, financial modeling and leverage financing.

In terms of his educational background, Mr Seymour matriculated at the Savio Adult Education Centre (Lansdowne) in 1986. He obtained his B. Comm (Accounting) Degree from the University of the Western Cape (UWC) in 1991 and his Hons B Compt from the University of South Africa (UNISA) in 1994, which he studied part-time while completing his articles of clerkship at Ernest & Young (EY) Inc. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant (South Africa) in 1996 when passed his qualifying exams. During April 2018, Mr Seymour completed the Banking Board Leadership Development Programme from Gordon Institute of Business Science at the University of Pretoria.

Mr Seymour’s extensive experience will add value to Casidra. Prior to joining Casidra, he held the position of Group Chief Financial Officer for an international based company called Caban Capital Plc (since 2015). Before then, he worked as an Executive Director: Commercial Services for Pikitup Johannesburg SOC Ltd for a year (2013-2014). He is, therefore, adept at working within the public sector and highly regulated banking sector environments.

Mr Seymour also volunteers his time and skills in various governance structures within communities and is passionate about environmental awareness and education. His key engagements include Board Strategic planning sessions, Organisational Risk Assessments, Strategic Organisational restructuring, the appointment of Key Executives and Corporate Governance King Codes implementation.

Mr Seymour has a can-do attitude and an action bias together with a positive demeanour in life. We give him a warm welcome in our fight against poverty and creating opportunities amongst our communities and wish him fruitful long stay with us.