Magda Wierzycka

Magda Wierzycka was born in Poland in 1969. In 1981, her family defected to Austria, where she lived for eight months in a refugee camp. The family moved to South Africa in 1982. She attended Pretoria School for Girls before moving to Cape Town, having won a bursary to study actuarial science at UCT. After working for a number of financial services companies, she became CEO of the African Harvest Group, before she founded her own company, Sygnia Limited, and co-founded a UK-based venture capital firm, Braavos Investment Advisers. She has been an outspoken critic of corruption in business and in government. In 2020, Forbes magazine listed her among €˜Africa’s 50 Most Powerful Women’. She divides her time between Cape Town and London with her husband and two sons.