Julia Fourie

Ms. Julia Fourie serves as the Chief Executive Officer, Director, and Member of Investment Committee of HBD Venture Capital. Ms. Fourie has been with HBD Venture Capital since September 2000. Ms. Fourie serves as a Director of BSquare Communications (Pty) Ltd. Ms. Fourie initially played a key role on the investment team of HBD Fund1 and was then promoted to her current position in 2006. She has led the company's strategic shift from start up to early stage companies through the launch of HBD Fund2. Ms. Fourie leads a dynamic and driven team which counts among its key successes, the profitable sale of one of HBD's investments, Red Five Labs, as well as discovering and investing in a range of exceptional early stage South African businesses which include moyo, OrderTalk, EDH, and Csense. Prior to this, she headed the development team at Thawte, where she gained exposure to international markets, early stage growth, management, web development, project, and change management. During her time at Thawte, Ms. Fourie established the WOT (web of trust) concept, assisted in building the architecture for the system, brought structured project management and facilitation between development and marketing departments, and acted as a notary (a role she still performs today). She also worked in a number of other industries such as financial, auditing, hospitality, and insurance. Ms. Fourie has worked in varied roles from a Bookeeper and Trainer to human resource administration. She is also a Non-Executive Director on a number of HBD's investments. Ms. Fourie serves on the Board of Directors of CSense Systems (Pty) Ltd., EDH SA (Pty) Ltd., Impi Linux (Pty) Ltd., Incubeta Holdings, MetriCap (Pty) Ltd., and Nucleus Ecopower. In addition, she launched concepts such as the Big Idea, and is a Trustee of the Shuttleworth Foundation, and a Director of BSquare Communications. Ms. Fourie’s passion remains information technology, but she has expanded her business expertise to include developing business strategies, negotiation, mentoring of entrepreneurs as well as general and financial management. She holds a B.Tech. in Information Technology and has completed a number of courses in Leadership, Negotiation, Financial Analysis, Risk, and Project Management. Ms. Fourie also has an Honours Degree in Financial Analysis and Portfolio Management from UCT.