About Teraco

• Tim Parsonson

  Group CEO, co-founder

  In 1990, Tim Parsonson obtained a BA Honours degree in Mathematics from Cambridge University, UK. After graduating, Tim worked as a Management Consultant for COBA M.I.D. in the UK and USA offices for 5 years where he was involved in the establishing the company’s USA IT/Telecoms practice. Between 1996 and 1999, Tim Parsonson was Business Development Director and Managing Director of Long Distance International Ltd., the European division of Long Distance International Inc which grew to operate in 6 countries. The group was eventually sold to World Access Inc. in 2000. In 1998, Tim Co-Founded Storm, a telecom services provider, in Cape Town. Together with his business partner and executive team, they grew Storm to service over 6 000 South African corporates, including listed entities and employed over 170 staff in 3 national offices. In October 2007, Storm entered into an agreement with a listed SA telecoms provider to purchase Storm. Tim then brought together a group of investors and entrepreneurs to found Teraco in 2009.

• Lex van Wyk

  Managing Director, Co-Founder

  Lex joined Telkom in 1986 where he received training in various telecommunications technologies until 1997. He then went on to become the Technical Manager at a startup called Valuecom where he took a leading role in building the first SA based fax over IP business. Valuecom listed on the JSE and was later sold to a leading ISP. In 2000, Lex joined Storm as Operations Manager. He was rapidly promoted and became General Manager taking P&L responsibility for the Gauteng region and then for the group in the position of Chief Operating Officer. During this time, Lex managed most of the business units including product, information systems, sales, voice and data networks, operations, HR and a total of 140 staff. Under Lex’s management, Storm launched a successful Voice over IP platform in 2005, terminating voice calls for hundreds of businesses including many large corporates. He filled his role as COO until the business was sold in 2008.

• Sven Blom

  Head of Sales

  After graduating, Sven plied his trade as a mechanical engineer in the automotive industry and later joined a national consultancy as a quality management consultant to blue-chip manufacturing and service companies across SA. Sven started his telecoms career when he joined Storm Telecom as operations manager in the Western Cape. After Storm acquired an ISP, Sven was tasked with establishing Storm's Durban branch and also established the group's service centre and telemarketing departments as regional director. At Storm, Sven proved his ability to grow one of the most successful sales teams in the industry and after seven years at the company he decided to venture into consulting again to various businesses in the ICT and other sectors. Sven was attracted to Teraco's unique colocation positioning and in 2008, joined as Head of Sales.

• Gys Geyser

  Head of Operations

  Gys Geyser Teraco's operations head. Leveraging a decade of experience in the data centre industry, Gys Geyser is responsible for managing the building and facilities of Teraco’s data centres in Cape Town and Johannesburg. He was previously the executive head of IP platforms at Vodacom, prior to which he was the senior manager of operations at Internet Solutions, where his responsibilities included responsibility for the company's data centre and hosting infrastructure and business continuity. He joined the Teraco team in 2009.

• Carla Sanderson

  Head of Marketing

  In early 1994 Carla joined a small start-up company called Futuristix. They were sole distributors in sub-Saharan Africa for a range of little know industrial software developed by US based company Wonderware. The next 10 years were spent fulfilling various roles within the organisation from training and software support to internal sales, finally culminating with the role of marketing manager. In 2006 Wonderware Southern Africa was acquired by EOH Limited and Carla joined the marketing division of EOH. What followed was several years gaining a broad range of experience in the ICT industry covering a multitude of software solutions, consulting, outsourcing and managed services within the group. The start of 2010 saw a complete change as Carla joined TransUnion Africa within a highly regulated financial services environment.

• Jan Hnizdo

  Chief Financial Officer

  In 1993, Jan Hnizdo graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand after completing a Bachelor of Accounting degree. Thereafter Jan joined KPMG to complete his articles. After qualifying as a Chartered Accountant Jan remained on with KPMG as an audit manager where he took on both audit and corporate finance responsibilities. In 1998 Jan joined JSE listed I-Fusion Holdings Limited as Group Financial Manager and shortly thereafter was promoted to Group Financial Director. In 2002 Jan was recruited by the lead investor of JSE listed Prism Holdings Limited to fill the position of Group Financial Director. Prism at the time was experiencing tremendous financial difficulties as a consequence of being part of the 2001 dot-bomb Tech stock fall-out. During the 5 years spend with Prism, Jan was significantly involved in the successful turnaround of Prism which culminated with the sale of Prism to a Nasdaq listed company. Upon the sale of Prism, exiting Private Equity investors in Prism introduced Jan to MediKredit where they too had a sizeable shareholding. During the 4 years spent at MediKredit, Jan was responsible for the turnaround and subsequent sale of MediKredit. In February 2011 Jan joined Teraco.

Our Board Members

• Andrew Tuckey: Chairman
• Njabulo Mthembu: Non Executive Director
• Christoff Botha: Non Executive Director
• Guy Willner: Non Executive Director
• William Wallis: Non Executive Director
• Lex van Wyk: Managing Director
• Tim Parsonson: Group CEO

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