Biography

Nerissa is a seasoned entrepreneur, CEO, and board member. She was a co-founder and CEO of āxil, a Fintech creating a smart wallet for small businesses.

Nerissa has served as a board member to multiple businesses globally over the last 5 years. Her directive is to advise on the overall ESG, technology enablement, and revenue generation strategies as businesses grow or gain strategic funding. She has been appointed Chair of the Board of multiple companies and chaired various subcommittees including Governance, Audit and Compensation. Nerissa was appointed to the Advisory Council for the Export Import bank of the United States in 2022, a US federal agency operating within the executive branch of the President.

During her two-decade corporate tenure, Nerissa has filled numerous senior executive roles, to open, manage and grow global businesses whilst at AIG and Accenture. She has provided board oversight, managed a 5000+ global workforce, and performed multinational strategic turnarounds through M&A and divestitures in Fortune 100 companies. She has worked in over 40 countries, navigating cross border working environments and regulators including the Fed.

As a native South African who grew up in Apartheid, Nerissa has been a proponent of equality and strives to break the mold of stereotypes in gender, race, and professional norms. She has been a keynote speaker on diversity and inclusion, systemic inequality, and racial injustice.

Nerissa was selected as a Young Global Leader in the World Economic Forum in 2019 and elected to its Advisory Group, including Chair of the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion sub-committee in 2021. She was featured in the Financial Times as a leader to watch, holds an executive MBA from NYU’s Stern School of Business and a BTech in Industrial Engineering from the Durban University of Technology. More recently, she continues her executive education at London, Harvard, and Wharton Business Schools.