Neil Lilford (Managing Director)

Neil has extensive experience in the fields of marketing, research, customer relationship and management development having both consulted and lectured in various companies and served on various bodies.

Furthermore, Neil successfully built up one of the largest private training, education and consultancy companies in South Africa. The organisation underwent a public listing in 1999 and merged in 2001 with Adcorp Holdings Limited.

Neil was appointed Group Director of Adcorp responsible for the training and consulting companies within the group. It was one of the largest providers of education and training in South Africa operating within the business to business and business to consumer environment.

Neil left Adcorp Holdings at the end of 2004 and started Greenfields Institute of Business at the beginning of 2006.

Neil has lectured at various academic institutions over the years including the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business, University of Stellenbosch Business School (USB-ed), UNISA and Warwick Manufacturing Group- Warwick University.  He has a Bachelor of Commerce Degree and a Masters in Business Administration.

Neil is currently studying towards his PHD in Industrial Marketing in Sweden.

Herman Steyn (Director)

Herman has been involved in the investment management industry since 1985, having held senior management positions in several established asset management companies. He began his investment management career when awarded a bursary from Old Mutual, studying a B. Bus. Sc. majoring in Actuarial Science, Statistics (Honours) and Economics at the University of Cape Town, completing his B. BUS. Sc. (Honours) in 1984.

After a period at Old Mutual, he co-founded an asset management company.

In 1993 Herman started the first index tracker fund, the Composite Unit Trust, in South Africa. He later sold the unit trust management company to Investec, joining Investec Asset Management in 1995 where he established Investec Asset Management's international fund management capability, setting up their fund structures in Dublin.

He was also responsible for the quantitative fund management that included local and international index funds, bonds, derivatives and asset allocation.

In 1998 Herman founded Prescient Investment Management with Guy Toms. Herman is Executive Chairman of Prescient Holdings Company. Prescient Capital became a 50% shareholder in Greenfields Institute of Business in 2008. Herman has lectured both actuarial students and finance honours students at University of Cape Town on quantitative finance as well as masters of financial management students at Rotterdam School of Management (Netherlands).

Michael Buckham (Director)

Michael joined Prescient during October 2007 to head up Prescient Life from an administration, accounting, compliance and operational point of view.

Michael attended the University of Cape Town, completing a Bachelor of Business Science with Finance and Accounting Honours in 1994. He furthered his studies with a Post Graduate Diploma in Accounting at UCT in 1995, then qualifying as a Chartered Accountant in 1996.

Michael obtained his CFA in 2002.

Michael completed his accounting articled period at Arthur Andersen in 1998 and then joined a start up operation called Ten50Six as Financial Manager. Michael took full responsibility for all accounting issues associated with the administration environment as well as for Ten50Six Life Limited, an investment linked Life Licence.

Following the purchase of Ten50Six Life Limited by Glenrand MIB Benefit Services in 2004, Michael continued to head up the Life Company and was involved in the transfer of client assets onto the Multi Manager platform established by the Glenrand Investment Consulting team.

Micheal left Glenrand during October 2006, joining a small Life Company called Lion of Africa Life Assurance Company Limited. He was involved in assisting the company with the stabilisation of their Pension Fund administration environment as well as establishing the investment linked arm of the company and setting up the Group Risk environment.

Michael is currently a CFA Charterholder and is a member of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants.