Dr David Makovah is the CEO and founder of Mr-Mak Learning - this digital first education business conducts professional training interventions in business in Africa broadly and including leadership, management, capital markets, credit, finance, economics, and related areas. The portfolio of clients includes leading South African Business Schools (Graduate School of Business (UCT), Gordon Institute of Business Science (UP) and Wits Business School) and corporates (Liberty, Investec, Standard Bank, Eskom, ECIC, Transnet). David holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Rhodes University) and Honours in Accounting Science (UNISA). He is a registered Chartered Accountant and holds a PhD in Project and Infrastructure Finance. He has extensive experience in both the private and public sectors. This covers companies ranging from small and medium size enterprises to listed blue chip corporates. He began his career by serving articles at KPMG in Parktown Johannesburg. Subsequent to this he joined Nedbank’s Group Risk division focusing on the commercial and corporate sections of the bank including structured finance and public financing.

David was seconded for 6 months to Old Mutual Asset Management in London to assist with the launch of their first two hedge funds. This deepened his expertise in financial services and banking.

In 2004 David returned to public practice as a manager at PriceWaterhouseCoopers in their Banking and Capital Markets division. He was responsible for auditing and consulting with private and public treasuries, and Corporate Finance divisions. His clients included Eskom Treasury, the South African Reserve Bank, Rand Merchant Bank Corporate Finance, and the Bond Exchange of South Africa. David was also responsible for drawing up and implementing audit methodologies and rolling out firm wide training to ensure compliance with BEE and specifically the Financial Sector Charter. As from 2006, David has pursued the entrepreneurial route culminating in the founding of Tactus Advisory of which he is a founder and director.

He has won multiple awards including Executive Education Lecturer of the year 2012/2014/2015 at the Wits Business School, MBA Lecturer of the Year (Part Time) 2015 at GIBS. David is highly regarded in the banking and financial services sector in South Africa and beyond, having conducted engagements in countries including Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Dubai, United Kingdom, Tunisia, Egypt, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and India.

David holds a PhD in Project and Infrastructure Finance that focused on holistic measures for the more effective execution of infrastructure and project finance initiatives in sub- Saharan Africa.

He founded ‘Mr. Mak Learning’, an internet-based learning platform that delivers digitised training and educational content focused on business learning contextualised in African markets.

He is a passionate proponent of Africa’s potential through people, an avid reader and traveller, and a novice and very limited golfer.