Joanne is the Chief Operations Officer of the IDC and is a chartered accountant by profession. She initially joined the IDC as a business analyst in 1996. During her early career, Joanne participated in and lead deals and transactions across sectors acting in both the lender and sponsor capacity. She formed the Corporate Finance team with a view to building capability to provide financial and advisory support to transformation transactions and later lead the Project Finance teams’ efforts in South Africa and on the continent.

Joanne then undertook a career in the private financial sector at HSBC Corporate Finance followed by a variety of roles at Absa Corporate and Investment Bank. These included head of Coverage for Public Sector, Infrastructure and Mining and most recently head of Client Innovation. In Client Innovation she was responsible for designing business strategies aligned to positive environmental and social impact and was part of the working group to align the bank to the Principles for Responsible Banking.

Joanne re-joined IDC in February 2020 as the Chief Operations Officer.