Who we are and what we do
Greenfield Data Solutions was established by Busisiwe Mabuza, Rustum Omar, Neil Lilford & Gary Scott who bring their wealth of experience to corporates internationally. The company is supported by a highly qualified and skilled team.
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Bio: Busisiwe Mabuza
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Ms Busisiwe Mabuza, 54, was appointed as the Board chairperson, in January 2015, of the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) which is the biggest development finance institution in sub-Saharan Africa.
Prior to her appointment as the IDC Board chairperson, Ms Mabuza served on the IDC board as a Non-executive director for 3 years. She’s a respected business leader and previously served as chairperson at the Central Energy Fund, which is a shareholder to a number of subsidiaries that operate in the fossil fuel energy sector as well as alternative energy among other achievements. Ms Mabuza also serves on several other Boards – ABSA Financial, Aviation Co-Ordination Services, Tsogo Sun, and AFGRI.
She is passionate about her service to private sector and government led initiatives aimed at transforming South Africa’s economic and social landscape. A holder of an MBA from the New York University’s Leonard Stern School of Business and a BA Mathematics and Computer Science from Hunter College, City University of NY, Ms Mabuza also serves on other boards in the public and private sector.
Bio: Rustum Omar
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Rustum graduated from the University of Cape Town with a BA, as well as a B Comm (Hons) qualification. He started his career at the Old Mutual group, initially as a strategic marketing analyst before assuming the position of a Principal Consultant at Old Mutual Actuaries and Consultants.
Upon leaving the Old Mutual group, he became a founding shareholder, and ultimately Managing Consultant and Chairman of Fifth Quadrant Actuaries and Consultants. He was also a founding director of African Harvest Fund Managers. He continues to hold the position of Chairman of Willis Towers Watson (Pty) Ltd, the acquirer of the Fifth Quadrant firm. Rustum also serves as a director and owner of an investment holding company that holds investments in largely fintech and financial services companies.
Bio: Gary Scott
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Gary Scott is an actuary specialising in healthcare who provides professional services to a number of high profile clients in his capacity as principal consultant with NMG Consultants and Actuaries (Pty) Ltd. He has a B.Sc. (University of Cape Town) and qualified as an actuary in 1988 with the Institute of Actuaries in the United Kingdom.
Gary has been a professional consultant for the past 30 years both in South Africa and the United Kingdom. Gary was one of the founders of the successful actuarial firm, Fifth Quadrant, that was established in 1998. This start-up firm was sold to Towers Watson in 2011, and Gary continues as a professional consultant with Towers Watson and more recently NMG when they purchased the Towers Watson health business in February 2018.
One of his particular focuses has been on the development of mobile technology and big-data solutions for his healthcare clients. He worked with a team of software developers on a number of projects including robo-advice tools for medical scheme selection, locator tools to find healthcare providers, large-scale data processing solutions for the healthcare industry and most recently a document management solution for the Inquiry into the Private Healthcare Industry by Competition Commission of South Africa.
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Gary brings this team of software developers to Greenfields Data Solutions, and with it the ability to implement solutions for clients in the mobile technology and big-data space.
Bio: Neil Lilford
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Neil Lilford has a B.com, MBA (University of Cape Town, South Africa) and a PhD (KTH University, Stockholm, Sweden). He is associated with Gordon Institute of Business (Pretoria University), University of Stellenbosch Business School and KTH University in the fields of research and lecturing.
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Neil specialises in the fields of Business, Sales and Marketing Strategy as well as Customer Experience. This includes digital strategy development. His 35 years of experience on various projects across industry sectors allows for engaging with executives in finding solutions for their organisations. This is further supported through his international exposure from both a business and academic perspective. He is also associated with two sister companies Greenfields Research (Pty) Ltd and Neil Lilford (Pty) Ltd.
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Neil started his career at the Old Mutual from 1983 – 1995 before commencing his own consulting and education businesses in 1996. In 1999 he was involved in a public listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and merged with Adcorp Holdings in 2000 where he was a Group Director on the listed board up until 2004. He commenced a market research and consulting company in 2005.
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Neil has published a number of articles internationally with specific focus on sales effectiveness and customer experience. He currently lectures part time in the field of marketing. He is involved with many international companies where he has facilitated business strategies applying his unique and comprehensive strategy methodology. He too has a specific interest in data analytics and market research.
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He is a member of the International Academy of Marketing Science and the South African Market Research Association. He attends conferences internationally where he has presented various academic papers.
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Neil has worked across industries including healthcare, financial services, motor, shipping, media and printing, beverages, oil and petroleum, logistics, mining and retail.
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Through his strong international presence and association allows for input to his clients on World Class best
practice insights.