Exco Members

Meet the senior team of experts who are involved with the strategic planning and overseeing of the finances and the daily operations of the various sectors that make up the V&A Waterfront.

David Green

Chief Executive Officer

David Green joined the V&A Waterfront as CEO in 2009, following a decade working in Port and Property industry within the UK

David’s career began in 1980 when he took a position at KPMG. While there, he was exposed to a variety of roles over the course of eight years and gained valuable experience in Insolvency Practice and as Senior Consultant, with emphasis on recovery and business turnaround activity.

Following this, he held several internationally based General Management and Financial positions in the Manufacturing Industry. They included Managing Director European Operations: Coats Viyella plc Thread Division (London); General Manager: Tootal/Coats (Costa Rica); Finance Director: Coats Brazil (Brazil), General Manager: Coats Brazil Zips (Brazil) and Development Director: Thread Division Coats Viyella plc (London).

Nine years on, Green started out in Sea Port and Property – a career that spanned a decade culminating in the role of Group Finance Director at Peel Ports, part of the UK’s largest privately owned property and transport business. Peel Group has gross assets in excess of £4 billion including the ports of Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester in addition to extensive properties: Trafford Centre (the largest retail centre in the UK) Glasgow Harbour, Salford Quays and Gloucester Quays.

During this time, he led the acquisition of Mercy Docks (a FTSE 200 company) and the integration of the company into the group and the sale of 49% to infrastructure company Rief (part of Deutsche Bank)

He holds a BA Hon from Herriot Watt University in Edinburgh in addition to being a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Scotland from 1992 and completing an AMP at Insead in Paris

Green lives in Fresnaye with his wife Wendy. He is an avid reader and enjoys cycling and travel and is a keen spectator of rugby and tennis.

Andre Blaine

Executive: Marine & Industrial Property

Andre Blaine is responsible for overseeing operations and management of the Cape Town Cruise Terminal, The Fishing Industry, V&A Waterfront Harbour, Marina and Canal, the Helipad and the Industrial properties.

Blaine joined the V&A Waterfront in 1999 and then left in 2007 for a stint in Saudi Arabia and with Zenprop Properties. He returned in 2008 as the head of the Commercial Portfolio and in 2016 he moved to the Marine and Industrial Portfolio while also playing an integral role in the Waterfronts Ocean Economy work. He has experience across the diversity of the property management sector from offices, retail, industrial and marine.

Blaine has completed studies in Public Management and Administration, Certificate in Estate Agency, Certificate Programme in Shopping Centre Management as well as being a member of SAPOA and SACSC. He has uncompleted studies in B-Tech Real Estate and Business Management and Administration fields. His thirty-year career in the Property Management field ranges from former Head of Prestige Services at the Department of Public Works to Property Manager of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia (Arabian Property Services), General Manager at Zevenwacht Mall (Zenprop) and Senior Portfolio Manager, V&A Waterfront.

He currently serves on the boards of the Two Oceans Aquarium and Blue Cape as well as representation on the Project Committee of Cruise Cape Town. He has a small project in the Klein Karoo which is one of his current passions.

André Theys

Executive: Operations

André Theys joined the V&A Waterfront Holdings (Pty) Ltd in June 2017 and is responsible for all operations comprising technical infrastructure, utilities, physical plant, hard and soft facilities management, which includes cleaning and hygiene, security and safeguarding, waste management, landscaping, and parking.  With more than 29 years of work experience, spanning engineering and building maintenance, services design, new build infrastructure and contracting developed in industrial contracting, institutional facilities management, and corporate real estate, he has a keen sense of multi-stakeholder environments.

Prior to the V&A Waterfront, André spent 16 years with the University of Cape Town and was the Executive Director of Properties and Services, responsible for their 600 000 square meter property portfolio.

Before that, he was employed at Eskom’s Peaking Generation division and before that at Luwa (South Africa), formerly a Swiss industrial engineering group, now ACTOM HVAC. André is a Certificated Engineer, is registered with the Engineering Council of South Africa and holds a National Higher Diploma and Bachelor of Technology degree in Mechanical Engineering as well as an MBA degree from the University of Cape Town.

André lives in the northern suburbs with his wife and daughter and is an avid cyclist and motoring enthusiast.

Vusi Nondo

Executive: Development

Vusumuzi Nondo has over 23 years of experience in the design, construction and development of property and property investments garnered mainly in South African institutional investment industry. He qualified as a professional architect before leaving the profession to join Old Mutual Properties.

Initially employed as a Development Portfolio Manager, he went on to develop and acquire new property investments in the residential, office, industrial and retail sectors of the market. He was a member of the Old Mutual Property Executive Committee, responsible for the management of the Old Mutual SRI Real Estate Fund until his departure to initiate a new venture, Urban Growth Management Company in 2011. His latest role prior to joining the V&A Waterfront was as the General Manager of Development and Investment at Communicare, the oldest social and affordable housing Non Profit Company (NPC) in South Africa.

Vusi holds several qualifications including a Bachelor of Commerce Honours Degree in Financial Analysis and Portfolio Management and a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from the University of Cape Town.

He is also a fellow of the Centre for Leadership and Public Policy Values based at UCT and Duke University a Bertha Scholar of the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship based at The Graduate School of Business in Cape Town.

Barbara Stewart Roberts

Executive: Human Resources

Barbara Stewart Roberts is a highly seasoned employment law consultant, HR and business strategist and executive coach. She started her career in law and then moved into the study of human resources, leadership development and coaching. Previous work experience includes heading up the Human Resources portfolio for an international off-shore Diamond Mining group for nearly a decade, where she honed many of her strategic and leadership skills. Barbara held the additional portfolios of 2IC to the CEO, various directorships within the group as well as being the first woman to hold a position on the Namibian Diamond Mining Council. Thereafter, Barbara had her own Management Consultancy for nine years before being approached to join the V&A Waterfront.

Barbara is a graduate of Stellenbosch University and has several additional post graduate qualifications in Employment Law, Strategy, Human Resources, Mediation and Facilitation, Executive Coaching and Leadership Development.

She is passionate about values- based and conscious leadership and believes that business has a critical role to play in leading society and is is highly involved with the creation of the vision and legacy of the V&A Waterfront and in developing a new leadership ethos for the business.

Renee Dente

Executive: Legal and Corporate Services

Renee Dente joined the V&A Waterfront in 2009 and is responsible for legal risk and compliance management, contractual relations, dispute resolution, corporate governance, and company secretarial services. She also oversees the internal and external co-ordination of all legal services.

Renee graduated with a BA LLB (Cum Laude) from the University of Cape Town. She has post graduate qualifications in several fields including mediation, executive leadership, business rescue and corporate governance. Renee completed her legal articles at Sonnenberg Hoffmann & Galombik (now ENS) where she practised as an associate in the commercial litigation department. For most of her career Renee has been in the corporate environment specialising in the property and retail sector: Prior to joining the V&A Waterfront she held a 5-year position as Legal Consultant at Canal Walk Shopping Centre and was legal advisor at a private property development company specialising in the retail, residential, commercial and leisure sectors.

In her leisure time Renee enjoys travel, running, reading and hiking.

Alex Kabalin

Executive: Retail

Alex Kabalin joined the V&A Waterfront in 2012 and is responsible for the retail property portfolio. The portfolio comprises in excess of 100 000 m2 of retail gross lettable area comprising of over 400-line shops, 150 craft markets tenants and over 80 food and beverage establishments.
He has over 20 years of extensive local and international property experience across all aspects of property investments, asset and portfolio management, development and business operations.

Prior to joining the V&A Waterfront, Alex spent 5 years at Covent Garden in London, UK as the Head of Asset Management and Leasing, where he was accountable for the asset and rental development and daily operation of the CapCo Covent Garden portfolio, consisting of 44 properties with a capital value in excess of GBP750 million.

He was also the Retail and Asset Management Director at property management specialist Nelson Bakewell in the UK for six years where he managed and developed a portfolio of shopping centres across the UK on behalf of institutional pension fund clients.

Locally he has held positions as the Operations Manager for Interpark in the Western Cape, a Retail Business Analyst at Pepkor and the Centre Manager for The Boulders Shopping Centre while at Rand Merchant Bank Properties.

Alex lives in the southern suburbs with his wife and 2 children. He is a self confessed petrolhead who also enjoys rugby, red wine and travelling.

Craig Kotze

Executive: Commercial Offices

Craig Kotze joined the V&A Waterfront as Commercial Offices Executive in 2016 with 14 years’ experience working in the listed property sector, where he has held senior management and director level positions in financial as well as asset management at Atlas Properties Limited, Acucap Properties Limited and Syncom Property Fund.

Prior to these roles, he worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers where he completed his articles and Control Instruments, a listed company in the automotive electronics sector, as financial manager and later as group financial manager.

Craig is an avid runner and spends most of his weekends next to the sports field supporting his 2 children.

Tinyiko Mageza

Executive: Marketing

Tinyiko Mageza’s Marketing career spans over 16 years beginning at The South African Breweries Ltd. Having been gifted the opportunity to work across a number of different departments at SAB Ltd. (from consumer insights, research and analytics to new product development and brand management) she began to realise that Marketing is alchemy – there is method within the magic.

Born in Soweto, Tinyiko fell in love with the idea of escapism through words and pictures. This inspired her to complete her BCom Marketing post-graduate degree at the University of the Witwatersrand in 2005. She’s passionate about the art of brand building and brand transformations that are initiated by purposeful inspired teams; galvanised behind a mission to create purpose-led memorable Marketing. She sees her role as one of storytelling, creating opportunities for connection and using the impact of Marketing to help solve both business and social challenges. Her philosophy in life is that the world needs more kindness and empathy because kindness trumps everything.

A series of leaps of faith led her into Financial Services where she held senior and executive level Marketing roles at Hollard insurance and Standard Bank South Africa respectively. At Standard Bank, she and her team championed marketing for the Retail and Business Banking portfolio. Her most recent leap was relocating to Cape Town to join the V&A Waterfront as Marketing Executive, overseeing the end-to-end Marketing and Communication value chain.

In 2020, Tinyiko was named one of 20 professionals in PRovoke Media’s Rising Stars list. The list recognises Marketers from across the world who are well-positioned to be among the most impactful future marketing leaders. Tinyiko serves as a Board Member for the Two Oceans Aquarium as well as the African Association of Visitor Experiences and Attractions (AAVEA).

Leigh Thomas

Executive: Hotels and Residential

Leigh Thomas joined the V&A Waterfront in 2008 as part of a retail leasing team where her role included actively sourcing and negotiating all new and renewal retail lease agreements. She also provided input in the design, tenant mix and implementation of the retail strategy for both the existing and new retail spaces at the V&A.

In 2015, Leigh moved across to head up the new business unit managing the 13 hotel properties and 259 residential to let apartments located in the V&AW.

Leigh is currently a director of The Hotel Company (Pty) Ltd for the Radisson Red, and a Board member of Cape Town Tourism (CTT) where she is Chairperson of the Audit and Risk committee. She also holds the Chair for the One & Only Body Corporate and is an Executive member of the Marina Residents Homeowners Association.

Leigh has completed various courses and certificates relating to both the property and travel and tourism industry.

Her passion outside of work is a fascination and interest in all things medical, and she loves to keep busy either through travelling to other countries where she is found shopping, on the beach, in a game lodge or hurtling down ski slopes. And when at home, she also enjoys hiking, running, and practising yoga.

Antoinette Basson

Executive: Finance

Antoinette Basson has over 26 years’ experience, 17 of which have been in the financial services industry. She joined Old Mutual Bank from PwC in London in 2000 and then went on to become a member of the Old Mutual South Africa Central Finance team, where she served as the group regulatory accountant. In June 2008 she joined Old Mutual Property as financial manager before being appointed to the position of financial director at SA Corporate Real Estate Fund.