Our leadership

Karl Westvig is the co-founder of Retail Capital, an alternative SME funding provider that pioneered financial inclusion in the South African market since 2011. As the industry leader, Retail Capital has funded more than 43 000 SME business owners, with more than R 5.5bn to date.

As the founder-CEO of various local and international finance companies, including DirectAxis, RCS Group, Recap Global, Karl enjoys being involved in start-ups and invests equally in growing them, while building strong teams around him. Over the past decade, Retail Capital has not only provided funding to the SME sector directly, but through embedded fintech solutions, Karl successfully launched finance products by partnering with over 10 industry leading and listed companies. His adventurous approach to business and leadership is matched by his philanthropic nature and during his tenure, he remains involved in local community initiatives and projects as chairperson of the JAG Foundation, which operates in sport, education, and bully-proof initiatives in the high-risk communities of South Africa and impacts over 40 000 children annually. His adventurous nature also extends into his personal life where he obtained his pilot license in 2020.

A statistician by trade, Karl graduated from UCT with an Honours degree in Business Science (Statistics and Operations Research). He is a Fellow of the Aspen Institute and the African Leadership Initiative and was an active member of the Young Presidents Organisation for many years.

As an accountant CA (SA), Miguel started his career in business management with an MBA (USB) and has gained extensive experience across multiple industries while at EY Advisory. His entrepreneurial spirit led him to joining Retail Capital as a start-up and during this time and as Managing Director for Funding he has played a key role in growing the company to be a market leader in providing alternative business funding solutions to the SME sector in South Africa. With a strong financial background and commercial experience in operations he specialises in building high-value partnership networks, business development and product strategy.

Tyler started his career as a CA(SA) at Deloitte where he worked on a purely financial services focused portfolio of businesses. He has played senior finance roles in African credit businesses both in-house and providing consulting services to credit businesses across the continent. He has a deep understanding of finance, risk, funding and governance. Since joining Retail Capital in 2018, he has over seen the launch of our SME lending product and heading up the finance department as the business transitioned from a single business into a group of companies.

Steve has served as Chief information Officer for Retail Capital for 5 years but has recently returned to Credit Risk Management. Stephen has over 35 years’ experience in both consumer and business credit risk management environments across the EMEA region. He also has extensive experience of corporate strategic and operational planning at senior and leadership levels, having served at the C Suite for several lending organizations, as well as within in a risk management consultancy. Holds an LL.B from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Erin’s career includes 14 years’ experience in consumer finance and fintech environments of which 4 has been in an executive role. She is passionate about creating engaging work environments and platforms to drive innovation and seamlessly align the people and business strategy. With degrees in Medicine and Psychology she has launched an award-winning Employee Wellness programme and performed as international speaker on the topic. Her skillset combines creative processing with analytical decision making and has been the driving force behind the rebrand and launch of the very successful digital and content marketing strategies for Retail Capital.

Carlo has more than 20 years’ experience in IT within the local and international financial services sector. He obtained his National Diploma and BCom (Hons) in Information Systems which founded his growth in leadership roles within the Systems and Enterprise Architecture environment. Carlo has a unique, fresh and organic approach to complex digital platform integrations and his work ethic and commitment to each project spans system automations as well as front and back-end development. He joined the Retail Capital team early in 2019 and is currently running point for all architecture, system development and support.

Thea has 21 years’ experience in Operational roles of which 9 has been in an Executive capacity, spanning industries including Consumer Finance, Telecommunications, Insurance, E-commerce and B2B Finance. She has been involved in, and familiar to the start-up phase of businesses, where her dedication to excellence and passion for people have allowed her to build and manage high performing teams. Her attention to detail and deep understanding of commercial data allows her to deploy many successful processes and procedures critical to business success.