Three careers in institutional asset management. One firm built on them.
MidSquare was founded in July 2023 by three former senior executives of Sanlam Investments. Between them: the chief executive's seat of one of Africa's largest asset managers, two decades of multi-manager portfolio construction, and the financial and operational leadership of investment businesses on three continents.
Nersan Naidoo
Nersan co-founded MidSquare in July 2023 after more than two decades of executive leadership in asset management. He served as Chief Executive Officer of Sanlam Investments from 2014 to 2023, a nine-year tenure in which the business became South Africa's largest empowered asset manager, achieved record net inflows, and concluded the acquisition of Absa Investments, the largest asset management transaction in South African history.
He championed the group's move into sustainable investing, including the joint venture with Dutch development bank FMO that created Climate Fund Managers, which he later chaired through the close of its US$960m Climate Investor One fund. His earlier career includes an executive directorship at Sanlam Multi-Manager International in London and a start at UBS Investment Bank.
Chairman of the Board at Old Mutual Investment Group, Old Mutual Investments, Old Mutual Alternative Investments and Futuregrowth Asset Management. Previously chairman of SA-H2 Fund Managers and Climate Fund Managers B.V.
CFA charterholder · BSc Electrical & Electronic Engineering, University of KwaZulu-Natal · Postgraduate Diploma in Organisational Leadership, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
Firm strategy and the conviction that digital assets deserve the same standards of governance and discipline as any institutional asset class.
Selwyn Pillay
Selwyn spent nineteen years at Sanlam Investments building one of the deepest multi-management track records in South Africa. He joined in 2004 and progressed through quantitative research, investment research and portfolio management before being appointed Deputy Chief Investment Officer of Blue Ink Investments, the group's fund of hedge funds business, where he led its transition into the new regulatory era, converting more than thirty partnership structures into regulated retail and qualified investor hedge funds.
He then served as Chief Investment Officer and Chief Executive Officer of Sanlam Multi Manager, operationalising its merger with Blue Ink and establishing it as the country's leading multi-manager, before leading business transformation, data and analytics for Sanlam Investments until 2023.
BSc Actuarial Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal · Postgraduate Diploma in Actuarial Science, University of Cape Town · Certificate in Quantitative Finance (CQF) · MIT IDSS, Data Science and Machine Learning
Leads the investment process, applying institutional manager-selection, portfolio-construction and risk disciplines to digital asset markets.
Reece Briesies
Reece is a chartered accountant who has run the financial and operational engine rooms of investment businesses on three continents. As Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer of Sanlam Investments from 2019 to 2023, he led the acquisition strategy that included Absa Investments, Climate Fund Managers, EasyEquities, Matrix and Catalyst, while the business became South Africa's largest empowered asset manager, while he simultaneously served as Chief Executive Officer of Satrix, South Africa's leading index-tracking manager.
Before that he was CFO/COO of Sanlam's international investments business and, earlier, COO/CFO of Atomos Wealth in the UK, where he helped build a start-up into a vertically integrated financial services group exited at more than US$300m, including the acquisition of Nucleus Financial, later listed on the London Stock Exchange. He has held non-executive directorships across investment businesses in South Africa, Ireland, the US, Australia, Mauritius and the Isle of Man.
Independent non-executive director of Old Mutual Wealth; SS&C Technologies (chair of the audit committee). Previously NED across Matrix, Catalyst, Curo, EasyEquities, SAMI (Ireland), Centre Asset Management (New York), Eight Investment Partners (Australia), Sustainable Capital (Mauritius) and Artisan (Isle of Man).
CA(SA) · BAcc and Honours in Accounting, Stellenbosch University · Advanced Management Program, Columbia Business School
Operations, finance and the control environment: custody, administration, and the disciplines on which institutional trust in a digital asset manager depends.