Charleen boasts impressive experience in her role, having previously worked in acclaimed positions such as Regional Manager in Marketing and Communications at ABSA (Eastern Cape and Western Cape), Executive Manager for Corporate Affairs at the South African Medical Research Council and Project Manager for South Africa’s inaugural Year of Science, Engineering and Technology. She has also worked extensively with national and international organisations and forums.

With Charleen at the helm, the CEI has effectively supported entrepreneurs and small businesses, as well as sourced millions of rands in funding.

Wendy Mehl was previously employed in the private sector where her experience gauged across many industries, including project and event Management, civil engineering and medical conferencing. With a strong background in finance, PR, marketing and project management, the opportunity to be engaging in small business development is a dream come true.

John holds a BCom Degree and Higher Diploma in Education. While working at the Department for Economic Development and Tourism as a Deputy Director in Entrepreneurship, he developed a passion for working with entrepreneurs. In his position as Deputy Director John worked on many different facets of Entrepreneurship development, such B-BBEE, Procurement Promotion, Supplier Development Programmes and access to finance for entrepreneurs. He is currently a consultant at the UWC Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation working on a number of initiatives to extend business development services to emerging businesses.

Brian has more than 20 years experience in strategy consulting and served in senior management positions in various organisations. As a facilitator of new action for better results he get clients to think, apply their minds and develop and act in vastly superior ways that promote forward movement by design.

In business and supplier development, he trained and consulted with more than 10,000 SME Business Owners around Strategy, Business Model Development, Revenue Model Development, Optimising Business Operations, Marketing, Lead Generation and Sales.

Wesley has acquired a B.Com, B.Com (Hons), M.Sc (Business Administration) and is currently working towards a PhD in Business Management. He has taught at the UWC School of Business and Finance, Unisa, Tsiba, UCT and CPUT in all areas of management, including strategy and entrepreneurship.

Current teaching and research interests include all areas of entrepreneurship and business strategy within the context of empowering family business. His research primarily uses case study analyses to examine phenomena relating to individuals, communities and society by explaining their inter-relationships, thus understanding the connectedness between micro-level and meso-level experiences in organisations. Wesley assists with various programmes offered by the UWC Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation as a business consultant.