Monica Sloane

Foundation Co-ordinator

Monica is a qualified microbiologist who spent several years in the food industry as a microbiologist and later in sales and marketing of food ingredients at various companies.

After marrying an educator she moved into the education field in various capacities. Monica believes that as human beings we all co-exist and it is our responsibility to serve each other. It is this belief that led her to heading up the St Peter’s Community Partnership Programme that focuses specifically on teaching children to read.

Lindsay Clur

Lindsay is a qualified chartered accountant (SA) and currently the Chief Financial Officer of Mirage Leisure and Development.

He became involved with St Peter’s in 2003 when his son was a pupil at the school and has assisted the school in various capacities as a member of Council (the school’s governing body), head of the finance committee and a trustee. He brings enormous financial expertise to the foundation and has been actively involved in developing the investment and financial strategy for the foundation, as well as the preparation of the annual financial statements.

Christo Els

Christo holds BLC and LLB degrees from the University of Pretoria, as well as an LLM degree from the University of South Africa, all three with distinction.

He also attended an executive education programme on leading professional services firms at Harvard Business School in 2008.

He is the senior partner at Webber Wentzel and is a partner in the corporate practice. He specialises in cross-border and domestic mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, securities regulation, corporate finance and general commercial law.

Christo is responsible for ensuring that the foundation complies with all legislative requirements and that it is structured in such a way so as to make it easy for our donors to take advantage of tax, BEE and CSI benefits – making their donations work to the maximum effect.

Peter Hayward-Butt

Pete has a BSC (Agric Econ) and BSC (Dev Econ). He was the assistant director of corporate finance at Barings Brothers in the UK from 1996 to 1999 before moving to ABN Amro in Hong Kong as the head of mergers and acquisitions advisory for Asia until 2004.

He then returned to South Africa and was the joint head of investment banking – a position he occupied from January 2004 until the beginning of 2015. He recently left RMB, but is still doing consulting work for the group. Pete brings with him a wealth of corporate, governance and financial experience, essential in growing the trust and ensuring that we are able to participate more widely in sustainable philanthropic projects.  

Bennetor Magara

Foundation Chair

Ben, who has a BSC (Eng) Honours in Mining Engineering, is currently the CEO and a director of Lonmin PLC. His previous positions include executive head: engineering and projects at Anglo American Platinum Ltd, non-executive director of Anglo American South Africa and CEO of Anglo Coal South Africa.

Christine Williams

Deputy Chair

Christine has a B.Business Science and CMSA from the University of Cape Town. Having begun her career at Uniliver as a brand and innovations manager, she then moved into strategy consulting and occupied various senior roles within business SA (including as director of group strategy and later director and global head of people strategy and metrics for the Standard Bank Group) before becoming the South African partner to Tyler Magan, a specialist leadership advisory firm working with senior management teams to improve organisational structure and performance.  

She is currently the founder and MD of 2Connect, specialising in enabling, supporting, mentoring and advising business leaders in South Africa and Africa to solve their key challenges through an integrated and systemic approach. She is also chairperson of the Human Capital Institute Africa.

David Bernhardi

Dave is a medical doctor by training, having obtained an MBBCH from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1994. Having spent 16 years in his own private practice, he is currently the medical director at Oryx Health and Hygiene, specialising in environmental service solutions.

Helen Atkinson

Helen is self-employed as an HR and labour consultant. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and English from the University of Cape Town. Helen has built a sizeable business by using her knowledge of talent management, leadership development and employee effectiveness in helping organisations to mentor, coach and develop staff for greater organisational effectiveness. 

Helen’s passion for developing individuals has led her to become involved with various philanthropic initiatives and her involvement with St Peter’s has seen her heading up the council and later becominge a trustee of the St Peter’s Foundation. Her specific area of interest is bursaries and it is therefore no surprise that this is where her greatest involvement lies. She was instrumental in sourcing funding for the General Bursary Fund, which supports previously disadvantaged individuals, and in establishing the Helen Atkinson Bursary Fund, which provides funding for the children of support staff at St Peter’s.