Nerissa is an accomplished entrepreneur and non-executive chair with over seven years of global board experience. She advises on ESG, technology enablement, and revenue generation strategies for growing businesses. Nerissa has chaired multiple boards and sub-committees, including Governance, Risk, Audit, and Compensation, and serves on the advisory board for the Export-Import Bank of the United States since 2022.

With a twenty-year corporate career at AIG and Accenture, she has held senior executive roles, managing global businesses, overseeing a 5000+ workforce across six regions, and executing strategic turnarounds for Fortune 100 companies across 40+ countries. She co-founded and was CEO of āxil, a Fintech for small businesses.

A native South African who grew up during Apartheid, Nerissa advocates for equality and challenges stereotypes in gender, race, and professional norms. She is a keynote speaker on diversity, inclusion, systemic inequality, and racial injustice. Named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2019, she was elected to its Advisory Group in 2021, chairing the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion sub-committee.

Featured in the Financial Times as a leader to watch, Nerissa holds an executive MBA from NYU’s Stern School of Business and a BTech in Industrial Engineering from Durban University of Technology. She continues her executive education at London, Harvard, and Wharton Business Schools