Nobody sets out wanting “an investment portfolio.” For our clients, investment is rarely the end goal. It’s about something else: meeting a liability, funding a retirement income that lasts, keeping a risk firmly in check or reaching a specific financial outcome. So we start with the destination, not the vehicle. What do our clients actually need, and what are they trying to achieve? Then we build around the answer, rather than squeezing clients into an off-the-shelf strategy. Our approach brings together actuarial insight, investment expertise and rigorous quantitative research to understand what needs to be achieved, what risks can be taken on, and how investments can be structured to give clients the best possible chance of getting there.
The result is investment with a purpose: theirs.
Markets are uncertain. Our clients’ needs are not. We don’t try to predict the future, we don’t bet on economic forecasts and we don’t try to time the markets. Instead, we rely on science and a rigorous approach to investing. Our proprietary models combine actuarial techniques, quantitative research and academically grounded thinking to understand how the objective, the investment strategy and the risks fit together, with full attention to the nuances of the South African investment environment.
For over 15 years, this approach has delivered a demonstrable track record of meeting large institutional and member-specific liabilities.
Our ethos is accomplishment and integrity in everything we do. We don’t hide behind complex terminology and investment jargon. Our success is built on making what we do more accessible to our clients and providing transparency in all our decisions.
We consider the full universe of possible investment securities to ensure that our clients’ unique objectives are met.
Our solutions cover every stage of the retirement journey. For defined benefit funds, we manage assets against the liabilities they need to meet. For defined contribution funds, we help members understand and work towards their retirement income goals, from building savings through to drawing an income in retirement.
Our LDI framework extends well beyond retirement funds. Wherever there is a liability or obligation to meet, we take the time to understand it in depth, including the regulatory framework around it, and build a customised solution to match. That could be an insurer backing policyholder liabilities, an employer funding post-retirement medical aid obligations, or a mining company providing for rehabilitation and closure.
Because every solution is built around the liability, so is the benchmark. We measure our performance against each client’s unique liabilities or obligations, not a market index.
Our name is a nod to the Colour Field art movement, whose painters stripped away the noise to focus on what was essential. We take the same approach. Every solution we build is designed to reduce investment-related risk and keep our clients focused on what really matters: their outcomes, not the markets.
Different people. Different perspectives. One Colourfield.
Behind every solution is a group of people who see the world a little differently. Our team brings together investment, actuarial, quantitative, strategic and operational expertise, and each of us adds our own experiences, interests and personality to the canvas. What connects us is a shared curiosity, a willingness to question conventional thinking and a commitment to finding solutions that genuinely matter to our clients.
Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director
Costa leads Colourfield’s strategy, business development and client relationships with the same energy and conviction he brought to leading the actuarial profession here in South Africa. Don’t let the extrovert fool you: behind the big personality sits a seriously technical actuarial and investment brain.
A Fellow of both the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and the Actuarial Society of South Africa, he is a former President of ASSA and now chairs its Actuarial Governance Board. He also served a presidential appointment as a Commissioner on the Independent Commission for the Remuneration of Public Office Bearers. He’s as comfortable in a liability model as he is in a room full of people.
Before co-founding Colourfield in 2010, Costa spent 18 years at a leading financial services provider, where he served as an Executive Director. Today he sets Colourfield’s direction and builds the relationships at the heart of its growth. Along the way he picked up an MBA with Honours from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, plus CFA, CAIA and CQF charters, apparently on the theory that there’s no such thing as too many letters after your name.
Away from the numbers, Costa expresses himself loudly. He trades spreadsheets for playlists, boardrooms for dance floors and investment strategies for racquets. When he isn’t on the tennis court, you’ll find him running the roads or grinding through a Hyrox session, because apparently one gruelling endurance pursuit isn’t enough. He is the office’s self-appointed authority on table tennis (challenges welcome, results not open to appeal) and a backgammon player who considers every roll of the dice a matter of skill.
Read bioChief Operating Officer and Executive Director
Shaun builds from the ground up, always thinking several moves ahead. He’s disciplined, curious and constantly searching for better ways to make complex ideas work. He combines operational leadership with deep technical expertise, bringing structure and fresh thinking to some of investment’s toughest challenges.
A founding member of Colourfield, Shaun is a qualified actuary and holds a PhD in Finance from EDHEC Business School, as well as the CFA and CQF charters. His background spans tailored solutions involving complex derivative structures, LDI and goals-based investment solutions, and detailed asset-liability modelling, an approach he pioneered in South Africa.
Away from the office, Shaun is a proud dad of four, and his interests are as wide-ranging as his work. If he isn’t speaking at an international actuarial or investment conference, he might be competing in a HYROX event or travelling the world for chess (he’s also Vice President of Chess South Africa). His favourite seat, though, is in the front row at a concert, next to his wife of more than 20 years.
Read bioChief Investment Officer and Executive Director
Nick leads investment management, structuring and trading at Colourfield, with a rare ability to look at a problem from every possible angle before anyone else has finished looking at it from one. Colleagues will tell you he sees things others simply miss — a trait that has shaped some of the firm’s most complex structuring work.
A founding figure behind Colourfield, Nick holds a PhD in Finance and is a Fellow of both the Faculty of Actuaries and the Actuarial Society of South Africa. His career includes building the first interest rate derivatives desk in South Africa at one of the country’s Big Four banks, lecturing at Wits and playing a key role in the development of the BESA Bond Indices.
Away from the models, markets and trading screens, Nick finds inspiration in jazz, coffee and anything sufficiently complicated to keep him occupied. Most importantly though, he is a devoted father of four — a commitment that has seen him move continents to be closer to his children. Curiosity does the rest. There is always another question, another connection and another way of looking at the problem. And probably another coffee.
Read bioHead of Actuarial Services
Coral works at the intersection of liabilities and investment strategy, translating technical problems into practical solutions. She leads Colourfield’s actuarial team with confident, detail-driven precision, because small things make the whole picture.
A Fellow of the Actuarial Society of South Africa with an MBA (Cum Laude) from GIBS, Coral is also a senior lecturer at Wits. Her technical background was honed over many years spent as a statutory valuator of retirement funds and she previously headed Employee Benefits Actuarial at a major financial services organisation. She serves on the Actuarial Society’s Retirement Matters Committee and is an Examiner for the Retirement and Related Benefits Fellowship exam.
When not obsessing about liabilities or lecturing, Coral can be found with a coffee in one hand, a book in the other, and a murder mystery playing in the background. And if there is an unbuilt puzzle nearby, her family is being neglected and she’s getting very little sleep.
Read bioResident Scientist
David’s approach to interest rate risk hedging, portfolio management and research is thorough almost to a fault — if something isn’t precisely right, he won’t let it rest until it is. That clinical, technical eye has made him one of the most detail-driven minds at Colourfield.
His role reflects the Colourfield approach of combining technical analysis with practical investment implementation.
With a PhD in Mathematics and both FASSA and CERA designations, alongside experience spanning actuarial work and academia, David brings a strong quantitative foundation to the investment process. Whether working with portfolios, benchmarks or code, his focus is on understanding the detail without losing sight of the investment objective.
When not plumbing the depths at work (he once did a brief stint as a plumber), David enjoys playing games with his three children and taking relaxing family walks in nearby parks.
Read bioManaged DC Head & Operations
Nelisha brings a distinctive blend of actuarial insight, strategic thinking and programme management to Colourfield — a combination that gives her a genuinely different way of looking at problems. That perspective has been shaped by international experience at global financial services organisations, spanning human capital and employee benefits consulting, ESG investing, corporate strategy and business transformation. It’s given her a view that goes beyond the traditional investment environment, and one that complements Colourfield’s technical expertise well.
At Colourfield, she brings that experience to the development of the business and its defined contribution solutions, connecting strategic thinking with practical execution. It’s this ability to step back from the detail, ask the bigger questions, and bring a fresh lens to familiar challenges that sits so comfortably within the Colourfield philosophy.
Away from work, Nelisha’s interests are anything but narrowly focused. There’s music — with a particular soft spot for George Michael — football and a longstanding allegiance to Liverpool FC, where You’ll Never Walk Alone is treated as both football anthem and life philosophy.
There’s also her love for travel and discovering new places and cultures, and interior design — a passion that once became a career of its own. Her idea of balance is probably somewhere between exploring a new city, sunrise walk by the ocean and rearranging the furniture when she gets home.
Read bioLiability Specialist
Lucia is a fellow of the Actuarial Society of South Africa and works at the heart of the liabilities that underlie the investment decisions. Her first principles knowledge feeds into LDI solutions, investment analysis, and client reporting. Understanding the nature of different pieces of an investment problem and how to turn that understanding into practical solutions is central to her role.
Before starting at Colourfield, Lucia was a statutory valuator at a large retirement fund administrator and later, an independent consultant after starting an academic career. Alongside her work in the investment industry, Lucia has experience in lecturing and research supervision. She is currently pursuing a PhD focused on global implications of longevity and population ageing. At Colourfield, she brings together analysis, communication and a detailed understanding of liability-driven investment.
When not interrogating the data, Lucia can be found running…or watching true crime with a slab of chocolate and a cup of coffee close at hand.
Read bioChief Technology Officer
Halmar believes the best technology, like the best design, should work as well as it looks – building the systems and models that keep Colourfield running behind the scenes, along with the governance and security that let clients trust them.
His actuarial background and his experience at both a large financial services company and an actuarial software development firm, spanning financial services technology, business intelligence, enterprise systems and cybersecurity, position him perfectly for this role. It reflects the intersection of actuarial thinking, mathematics, technology and investment that sits at the heart of much of Colourfield’s work.
He’s a rare kind of CTO: he can discuss actuarial models with the investment team and regulation with the auditors, then build the solution himself.
If Halmar’s weekends were a film, they’d be shot entirely on location: cross-country mountain bike trails with his son, multi-day hikes with the family, and a camera always ready for the frame nature only offers once. Fuelled by strong coffee, he brings the same eye for structure and detail to a mountain landscape as he does to a data model, though he’ll admit the trails are the one system where downtime is the whole point. Ask him for a film recommendation, but set aside some time.
Read bioFixed Income Trader
Thapelo combines a trader’s market awareness with a quantitative mindset and an entrepreneur’s drive to build. His expertise spans nominal and inflation-linked bonds, money markets, repo funding and interest-rate risk, with a particular interest in how inflation, monetary and fiscal policy together with economic developments shape investment opportunities.
At Colourfield, he brings this knowledge to the execution and management of liability-driven investment strategies, connecting daily trading decisions with clients’ long-term financial needs. An Investment Committee member, he contributes to investment research, portfolio discussions and the development of new solutions. His curiosity extends to technology: he develops analytical tools that turn complex market data into practical insights, sharpen valuation and relative-value analysis and support informed portfolio decisions.
Before joining Colourfield, Thapelo gained experience across FirstRand, RMB and Ashburton. He holds a BSc in Mathematics of Finance and a BCom Honours in Insurance and Risk Management from the University of the Witwatersrand.
Beyond the markets, Thapelo is a footballer, a keen runner and a gym enthusiast. He also runs Maebana Transport Solutions, bringing a hands-on interest in entrepreneurship, transport and the economics of growing a business. Whether analysing a yield curve, developing a trading tool or stepping onto the football pitch, he enjoys the combination of strategy, discipline and teamwork that turns an idea into a result.
Read bioInvestment Administration Specialist
Layden plays an important role in the investment administration that supports Colourfield’s day-to-day operations. Having worked within top-tier financial institutions, he brings a steady, seasoned maturity to the table.
His work helps keep the complex details behind the investment process organised, accurate, and moving smoothly in the right direction. On any given day, you’ll find him working closely alongside our trading teams, acting as a reliable partner to ensure transactions flow seamlessly and every administrative requirement is perfectly looked after.
Outside the office, he’s a devoted family man and a passionate Manchester United supporter. He also still laces up his boots to play soccer—though these days it’s strictly with the “veterans” crowd, where the pace is slower, but the post-match banter is unmatched. Whether he’s out on the pitch or stepping into his favourite role as an active sports dad on the sidelines, Layden brings the same loyalty to his team at the office as he does at home.
Read bioActuarial Analyst
Kholo works across actuarial analysis, liability-based benchmarks, portfolio management, monitoring, reporting and client liaison. Her role brings together the technical and practical sides of Colourfield’s work, helping translate analysis into information that can be understood and used.
With an actuarial background, she contributes across both investment and client engagement, bringing a broad perspective to the day-to-day work behind Colourfield’s solutions. After completing her Honours in Actuarial Science, she gained modelling experience at a major insurance company before bringing that same clear-headed approach to Colourfield.
Kholo is a mother to an energetic little girl. She enjoys being around art in all forms: music, painting, dancing or doing a photoshoot just for fun. She is dedicated to taking care of her family and community service. She continues to be a community leader in Alexandra Township leading different outreach projects in her role at Kholofelo Ya Phetogo NPC as Founder and CEO. The non-profit organisation coordinates youth focused initiatives such as extra tutoring and career guidance.
Read bioActuarial Student
Quiet on the surface but sharp underneath, Sim brings a technical and analytical perspective to Colourfield, with a particular interest in programming and the ways technology can be used to solve investment and actuarial problems. He brings his programmer’s mind to Colourfield’s actuarial valuations and client reporting — methodical, precise, and always a little more playful than he lets on once you get to know him.
Simthande is always thinking a few moves ahead, whether on the chessboard, the table tennis table, or exploring what AI can do next. He’s rarely without music, and he’s far funnier than anyone expects, so consider yourself warned.
Read bioInvestment Administration
Daisy brings colour and personality to Colourfield’s investment administration — proof that even the most process-driven work has room for character. Bold and unafraid to be herself, she’s become one of the more memorable presences on the team.
Began her career in Financial Markets more than a decade and built extensive experience across the end-end trade lifecycle. Her experience includes trade execution support, settlements, reconciliations. Using her relationships gained in the market during the years to ensure smooth trade settlement.
Daisy is a wife and mother of two who enjoys going to the gym, shopping, cooking, giving back to orphaned and vulnerable children, and participating in charitable initiatives. She enjoys connecting with people from all walks of life and lending a listening ear.
Read bioActuarial Student
Warm and quick to connect, Teesta combines analytical thinking with a natural curiosity for understanding the bigger picture. Having completed her Honours in Actuarial Science, she is on her journey to qualifying as an actuary while building her actuarial career at Colourfield.
At Colourfield, Teesta works primarily on the liability side of the LDI solutions, applying actuarial thinking to the analysis and valuation of pension fund liabilities and the investment strategies designed to match them. Her role also includes investment reporting and engaging with clients, helping translate complex actuarial and investment concepts into clear, practical insights.
Outside of Colourfield, Teesta enjoys spending time with family and friends, listening to music (as a proud Swiftie) and, more often than not, studying. She loves getting outdoors for a good hike, exploring foreign languages, and traveling whenever she gets a chance. A good cup of coffee and some dark chocolate are never far away – especially during a long study session.
Read bioLegal
Aurelia brings a legal and corporate-commercial perspective to Colourfield, helping frame the agreements, structures and considerations that support the business and its relationships.
Like a frame around a work of art, her role is not necessarily the most visible part of the picture — but it provides definition, context and boundaries. It is about understanding what matters, where the edges lie and how the pieces fit together.
Read bioCompliance
Mary brings a compliance perspective to Colourfield, helping ensure that the business operates within the frameworks and standards that underpin responsible investment management.
Her role provides an important counterpoint to Colourfield’s appetite for fresh thinking: innovation works best when it is built on strong foundations. As Head of Compliance, Mary helps provide those foundations.
Read bioOffice Manager
Palesa brings warmth and energy to everything she touches, keeping Colourfield’s office running smoothly while making sure no one who walks through the door feels like just another visitor. Bubbly and endlessly friendly, she’s often the first familiar face people meet at Colourfield.
Her role may sit outside the investment process itself, but it plays an important part in the experience of both the team and the people who interact with Colourfield. There is always more happening behind the scenes than meets the eye.
Read bio