Zach George

Co-founder & CIO Startupbootcamp Africa

Zachariah (Zach) George is the co-founder and Chief Investment Officer of Startupbootcamp Africa – the leading multi-corporate backed venture accelerator program in Africa. In 2013, he founded Cactus Advisors – a specialist corporate finance advisory firm and micro VC fund that has advised and invested in 40+ of Africa’s top tech ventures including Flutterwave, Kudabank, MPost, HouseME, RecoMed and several others. Zach currently serves as a Principal at Nedbank Venture Capital & Alternative Investments.

He was co-featured on the cover of Fast Company Africa in May 2018, Destiny Man Magazine in November 2019, and in December 2019 was recognized as one of the Top 10 Most Influential People in Technology in Africa. In January 2020, he was listed as one of the Top Four Movers and Shapers of Technology in Africa by the prestigious French business daily – Les Echos

Zach was formerly the head of Africa Investments for U-Start – the largest network of private Multi-Family offices in Europe. Prior to moving to South Africa, he was an investment banker on Wall Street covering M&A, corporate finance strategy and risk management at Lehman Brothers and Barclays Capital.

Zach has a Master’s degree in Finance & Management from Stanford University and a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology.

Outside of his professional life, Zach is a father to 3 children, and is an acoustic guitarist/vocalist with  cover albums ‘Give A Little’ (2010) and ‘Humans with Hearts’ (2018) on iTunes and Spotify. He is an avid lover of theater and the performing arts, likes hiking and a good game of tennis and squash. He enjoys creative writing and is currently busy finishing a work of non-fiction.