Rian van Heerden sits down with founder of Sygnia, Magda Wierzycka

Magda Wierzycka qualified as a Fellow of the Faculty of Actuaries (Edinburgh) in 1994. She has over 25 years experience in the South African financial services industry and has published widely in the field. She has also served as a board member of the Actuarial Society of South Africa.

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She started her career as a product development and investments actuary at Southern Life in 1993, where she designed and managed index-tracking funds. This was followed by two years at Alexander Forbes as an investment consultant until she joined Coronation Fund Managers as a director and the Head of Institutional Business in 1997. 

While at Coronation she grew the institutional assets under management of the company fivefold. Magda left Coronation in 2003 to start IQvest, a fund of hedge funds company. After selling IQvest to the African Harvest group later that year, she was appointed CEO of African Harvest, where the assets under management grew from R10 billion in 2003 to R35 billion in 2006 under her stewardship. After negotiating the sale of African Harvest Fund Managers to Cadiz Financial Services in 2006, she led the management buy-out of the remainder of the African Harvest group that led to the formation of Sygnia.

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Magda grew Sygnia’s assets from R2 billion in 2006 to R296.4 billion in September 2021, making Sygnia the second-largest multi-management company in South Africa and one of the largest index-tracking managers in the country. Sygnia listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange on 14 October 2015, where its initial share offer was 20x oversubscribed.

Magda stepped down as active CEO of Sygnia Limited in May 2021, moving to the position of executive chairperson of the group. At the same time, she and a colleague launched the venture capital business Braavos Investment Advisers, which is based in the United Kingdom and has attracted over US$500 million in assets since inception. Magda has been a guest lecturer at the Business School at Columbia University and sits on several advisory boards in the United States. Today, Magda splits her time between South Africa and the United Kingdom. 

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