About us | Management Structure

Francois currently holds the position of Group CEO of MWEB. Previously the CEO of DStv mobile, Francois has a Bachelor of Commerce (Marketing) degree and a MBA from the University of Cape Town, Graduate Business School.

He has 15 years of both local and international experience in the subscription television and telecommunications industries and first joined the MIH Group in 1995 as CEO of M-Tel, a Service Provider company to MTN. In 1996, M-Tel was sold to MTN and he was appointed CEO of MultiChoice Middle East and MultiChoice Egypt, based in Dubai.

In 1999, Francois moved to Thailand as CEO of the United Broadcasting Corporation (UBC), a publically listed company. During his tenure, he turned the business from a loss making concern into a profitable venture and served on the main board of the Asian Cable and Satellite Association. In 2006, Francois returned to South Africa as CEO DStv MOBILE Africa and South Africa which lead the development and roll out of MIH’s DVB-H mobile broadcasting and streaming operations.

Hennie Visser joined MWEB in 2011 as Chief Financial Officer. Hennie is an accomplished financial professional and has held several senior positions during his 17 year tenure in the financial industry.

Hennie started his career in 1996 at PricewaterhouseCoopers and moved to The Netherlands office in 2000. During this time he gained extensive knowledge of the corporate merger and acquisition markets in Europe. In 2004 Naspers-owned MIH Holdings employed him to head up its internal audit department. In 2007, Hennie joined mobile Instant Messaging and social networking company, MXit Lifestyle, as Chief Financial Officer and in 2009 became Chief Operating Officer.

Hennie studied at the University of Johannesburg and qualified as Chartered Accountant in 1998.

Derek Hershaw joined MWEB in 1998 as General Manager of the Dial Services Division. In 2003, he took over as General Manager of Operations, managing the front and back office customer support environments.

Before joining MWEB, Derek worked for Norwich Life for nine years, primarily in their Client Services Division. He holds a BCom (Honours) degree in Economics from Rhodes University.

André has 29 years of engineering and management experience in the Telecoms, Internet and Digital Media Industry. He obtained his B.Sc Eng degree at the Universtity of Cape Town and a Business Management Diploma from the University of Stellenbosch Business School, and has since has worked in South Africa, USA, Europe and Asia.

André joined MIH when it started its Internet operations in South Africa in September 1997 as MWEB, and moved on to function simultaneously as a Naspers Group CIO from 2000 to 2003.

In 2004 he became jointly responsible for the MWEB CTO role and for creating a centralised Internet incubator facility for the MIH group - The MIH Innovation Zone - which has since evolved into the MIH SWAT.

Beginning 2006, André was moved into the executive team of the MIH Internet Africa business. He has been an integral part of a number of online initiatives in Naspers spanning the past 14 years. Highlights include expansion of MIH into China with Tencent; MWEB and Sanook Thailand, Abril Online, Brazil, Mocality in Kenya, 24.com, Kalahari and Property24 in South Africa.

In 2010 André took control of NMScom, restructured it in collaboration with MWEB’s Uncapped strategy and built the broadband multimedia network which currently houses all of the group’s online assets in South Africa and Africa. This includes Media24, DStv, MIHIA and MWEB digital content and Internet access products and services.

Thaddeus holds a B.Sc. Degree in Geology and Computer Science and an Honours Degree in Computer Science from UWC. He also completed a leadership program co-sanctioned by the UCT graduate school of business in 1998.

Thaddeus started his career as a trainee programmer at Woolworths in 1990; he spent the next 15 years at Woolworths in various technical and business leadership roles. In 2005 he joined the Western Cape Provincial Government as Chief Director: Planning and Development at the Centre for e-Innovation. In 2005 he was appointed Chief Information Officer (CIO) responsible for all ICT services in the province.

Thaddeus joined the National Department of Land Affairs (now Rural Development) in 2007 as CIO where he facilitated the turnaround of the floundering ICT unit. He joined MWEB in 2011 as CIO.

Ettiene started his career in the MultiChoice Customer Service environment in 1993 in Bloemfontein, after studying Personnel management for 3 years. He subsequently moved to Cape Town in 1996. In 1997 he was appointed as Decoder Center manager.

He joined MWEB in 1998 as Billing manager and in 2000 he took up the position as Billing, Collections and Risk manager. He was appointed as General Manager MWEB Operations in December 2009

After completing a diploma in Marketing Management, Carolyn started her career in Market Research with Research Surveys.

She moved on to gain advertising, retail and direct marketing experience before joining MWEB in 2003 as Customer Relationship Marketing Manager. In 2006 she took full control of the Marketing for MWEB Connect and is currently the General Manager of MWEB Connect in control of the Consumer, SOHO/SMME Connectivity products.

Andre studied law for three years at the University of Pretoria and later joined the ICT sector.

He spent 10 years in distribution working for the Altech and Tarsus Groups, before taking a position with international networking vendor Cisco Systems. Andre joined MWEB Business in 2004 as General Manager after a brief stint at Dimension Data subsidiary Internet Solutions.

Nathier leads the business unit responsible for MWEB's portal, multimedia content and services environment.

He started his career with MWEB in 1998 as a support agent and progressed through various project and product management roles within the organisation.

Nathier holds an Electrical Engineering diploma from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology and further qualifications in Marketing, Project and Product Management.

Calvo holds a BSc in Electrical Engineering (1999) from University of KwaZulu Natal (ex-University of Durban Westville).

He joined Sentech in 2000 as an RF Engineer. In 2004 he joined ICASA as Manager: Broadcasting Spectrum. Here, he also served as an Advisor to Council on technical matters. He led a team developing the digital broadcasting plan for South Africa at the Regional Radio Communication Conference 2006, and also served as an International Telecommunications Union planning expert during the conference.

In 2007 he was appointed as Regulatory Affairs Manager at Orbicom. He continued to be involved in the technical aspects of regulation and all spectrum related issues with Orbicom. In 2007 he joined MWEB as General Manager Regulatory Affairs. Calvo is registered as a Professional Engineer with the Engineering Council of South Africa, and is also a member of the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers.

Pieter holds a Masters Diploma in Technology (Telecommunications) and a BCom degree from UNISA.

He was appointed as General Manager Business Development within MWEB during 2010. Prior to his appointment at MWEB, Pieter worked at Telkom where he was responsible for the business relationship between Telkom Wholesale and the mobile cellular operators, service providers, fixed line operators and broadcasters.

Eugene holds a M.Sc. in Electronic Engineering from the University of Cape Town (1990) and a MBA from the University’s Graduate School of Business (2002).

After starting his career at Telkom in 1991 as a software developer, Eugene joined MWEB in 2004 where he was initially responsible for integrating MWEB’s Tiscali acquisition. In 2006 Eugene was appointed as General Manager of New Business Projects where he managed MWEB’s WiMax network trial and launched MWEB’s VoIP and wireless services.

Eugene was appointed General Manager of Voice Services in 2010, with the goal of developing Voice into a full commercial division of MWEB.

Clinton obtained a B.Soc.Sc. at the University of Cape Town and BA (Hons) at the University of Port Elizabeth.

He started his career as an HR trainee at De Beers in 1992, at their Venetia mine in the Limpopo Province. He worked as HR Administration Manager for Asea Brown Boveri during 1994 and 1995. At Edcon, he spent a short spell as Divisional HR Manager before relocating to Cape Town during 1997.

He worked as an HR Specialist for South African Breweries for 4 years and then joined Oceana as HR Manager. During November 2003 he joined Philip Morris International as HR Manager: South Africa. Clinton joined MWEB in October 2005 as General Manager: Human Resources.