Women’s Day in South Africa is a pivotal celebration of the courage and resilience of women in our country. National Women’s Day is held every year on the 9th August to honour the heroic women’s march against Apartheid pass laws in 1956. This historic moment continues to shape and inspire us as a nation.
We are celebrating Women’s Month at IGrow Wealth Investments, a time to reflect on the progress women have made and acknowledge how they are making waves in South Africa. It is especially poignant that women are well represented in key leadership roles throughout South Africa, across multiple industries.
At IGrow, we believe that a thriving business is founded on great talent. Many talented women are guiding the IGrow Group with their drive and inspiration, and with the support of their colleagues and teams. We are excited to work with the business-savvy, well-qualified women at IGrow, who lead with their pillars of passion, creativity, expertise, determination, and purpose.
In this video, a few of the women of IGrow share special messages for young women in their careers.
The importance of the women leaders at the IGrow Group
Across the multiple companies that form the IGrow Group, a large portion of senior leadership positions are held by women. These leaders are instrumental in driving our business towards further success. Our companies cover everything from property investment strategy and Home Loans, to our Tax & Accounting Advisory, IGrow Trusts, as well as property maintenance and tenant management through IGrow Rentals.
We offer expert guidance and support from our various companies, equipped with experts in their respective fields. The IGrow Group is happy to have a workforce whose female leaders are carving a prosperous future for the South African property investment landscape.
It is significant that most of the female employees at IGrow that we will be shining a spotlight on today are not only wonderful leaders, but also property investors in their own right. This indicates how invested our team is in our IGrow property journey. We don’t merely advise clients to generate wealth through property investments. We are part of the journey, too, building lasting wealth and a legacy for our loved ones.
“As we celebrate Women’s Day this year, we recognise the valuable contribution made by the remarkable women who lead many of our companies and teams. The commitment, expertise, talent insights, and success of the IGrow team, as a whole, show how we are trailblazers in the property investment space.” – Debbie Sherman, IGrow COO
We’d love to introduce you to some of the women who head up some of our companies within the IGrow Group. Our teamwork ensures our clients achieve the financial freedom and success they desire through their property investments.
Women in Leadership- IGrow Group
Debbie Sherman – COO, IGrow Group of Companies
Debbie Sherman is IGrow’s newly-appointed COO (Chief Operating Officer). She was formerly the National Head of Sales, where she led with expert strategic insight, operational finesse, and a client-centric approach. She brings more than 10 years of ground-breaking business success and leadership to IGrow, with a diverse background encompassing industrial design, finance, governance, and operational systems.
Debbie owns a property portfolio with IGrow, making use of each company within the IGrow Group. This gives her a first-hand, practical grasp of the IGrow client journey. Her vision is to further increase cohesion across the seven IGrow companies. This is to ensure our investors enjoy a seamless, efficient, and integrated property investment journey.
Debbie is a hands-on leader of all our companies at IGrow, ensuring that things run smoothly.
Group Financial Manager – Maryke Engelbrecht
As IGrow’s Group Financial Manager, Maryke oversees all IGrow’s financial operations. She makes sure there is good operational flow, compliance is met among staff, and accurate reporting is managed across the Group’s companies. Her excellent business acumen and accounting expertise form the core of all her decision-making at IGrow.
IGrow Wealth Investments
Head of Sales (Western Cape) – Lea Booyse
Lea Booyse oversees all property investment strategists in the Western Cape region. With over 7 years at IGrow, her passion and expertise make her a leading light guiding the Property Investment strategist teams’ success in helping clients get the best results from their investments.
Lea is a hands-on leader, who offers warmth and personal insights to help investors and her team to thrive.
Head of Sales (Gauteng) – Jessica Van Dyk
Jessica has a special focus on personalising and tailoring portfolio planning and offers excellent investor support and guidance. She elevates investor confidence and ensures clients see strong growth. She encourages her team to follow suit and offer tailor-made, winning property investment strategies.
Jessica is a leader who embodies energy and passion for strategic investing, creating an atmosphere where strong relationships with clients are upheld amongst her team.
Fun fact: Collectively, Lea and Jessica are fondly referred to by colleagues as ‘Lessica’, and their combined passion and energy pack a punch for successful investments all around, across national teams.
Developments Finance Manager – Roxanne Beselaar
Roxanne brings strong financial acumen, a top accounting qualification and brilliant negotiating skills to the development Project Management team of IGrow Wealth Investments. With frequent trips from the Cape Town headquarters to prospective aquisitions in Gauteng and elsewhere, she is a critical part of assessing the value of properties and managing financial transfers. She always leads with genuine grace and quiet charm that belie what a powerhouse she is in the company.
IGrow Home Loans
Director of IGrow Home Loans- Madelein Kottnitz
Madelein Kottnitz is the Director of IGrow Home Loans, an award-winning company in the IGrow Group. Her broad experience in securing financing and home loan approvals means our investors benefit from optimal home loan interest rates and loan terms. Madelein’s team of bond originators make all Home Loan applications on behalf of IGrow’s clients and ensures better approval rates.
Madelein leads with exceptional know-how and top-notch customer service acumen. She helps clients using IGrow Home Loans’ services to access the financing they require to enhance their property investments as speedily and smoothly as possible. Her team regularly beat national averages for number of bonds secured at lower than typical interest rates and are currently the leading bond originators in the Western Cape, and second in Gauteng!
IGrow Rentals
National Head of Customer Relations, IGrow Rentals – Karen Grobler
Karen Grobler is the National Head of Customer Relations at IGrow Rentals. She brings many years of property rental expertise to the table. Her leadership touches every facet of the IGrow Rentals team. She oversees all customer relations services, ensuring our clients are treated with care and professionalism. She makes sure that IGrow’s investors and tenants get prompt and effective responses and constantly refines systems to help run IGrow Rentals’ vast operations better and better.
Karen leads her team with warmth, extensive rental property experience, and a client-centric vision that ensures excellent customer service on behalf of her team.
National Rentals Manager, IGrow Rentals – Bianca Botha
Bianca Botha leads IGrow Rentals‘ national portfolio. She is highly skilled at managing the rental and portfolio managers teams accross multiple investment properties around South Africa and has spent 7 years at IGrow.
With her strong leadership and agility, she makes sure the Rental Managers secure reliable tenants through IGrow’s thorough vetting process. She also ensures outstanding service is across IGrow’s rental network.
Bianca encourages her team to uphold excellent service delivery across the board, on a national level.
IGrow Real Estate International
Lezelle Kirsten – Director, IGrow Real Estate International
Lezelle Kirsten is the Director of IGrow Real Estate International. She oversees real estate property purchases, resales, property valuations, and investor-related services. She has a client-first philosophy, which encourages the IGrow Real Estate International team to support buyers and sellers from South Africa and abroad.
Lezelle is an excellent leader with a global property market mindset and knowledge. She offers top-notch guidance on seamless property transactions, property investment and helping buyers and sellers find the perfect match to fulfil their dreams.
IGrow Trusts
Director of IGrow Trusts, Jolandi Vermeulen FPSA®
Jolandie Vermeulen FPSA® is the Director of IGrow Trusts. She keeps an eye on all trust structuring, any estate planning, and fiduciary administration for IGrow’s investors. Jolandie is an attorney and a Certified Financial Planner. She leads her expert team to create Trust or Company structures and helps manage client wills, so that IGrow clients’ legacy planning aligns with sound investment strategy.
Jolandie leads with legal finesse and financial foresight, making sure every client’s property legacy is secure for their heirs to inherit with ease. She ensures her team are diligent and thorough in all aspects of IGrow Trusts’ service offerings.
IGrow Accounting & Tax Advisory
Cara Prins – Director, IGrow Accounting & Tax Advisory
Cara, as a Chartered Accountant and Director of IGrow Accounting and Tax Advisory ensures clients remain tax compliant and tax efficient. Her leadership abilities mean that IGrow’s clients will benefit from efficient and accurate accounting and tax strategies. This means our clients’ property investment portfolios are structured as successful, tax-efficient investment vehicles.
Cara is a leader who has technical prowess and core strategic insights.
IGrow Digital Marketing
Creative Program Manager – Nicolette Cronje
Nicolette Cronje manages IGrow’s creative marketing (Graphic Design team). She combines digital strategies with her background in Graphic Design and Marketing to provide effective property marketing campaign messaging. She ensures digital assets are consistent and on-brand. Nicolette has experience creating engaging visuals for property developments and investor-related communications. She makes sure IGrow’s design content is appealing and portrays the IGrow brand well across all platforms.
She is a leader who embraces excellent vision with creative attention to detail. Nicolette ensures IGrow’s Graphic Design team produces high quality marketing collateral which is innovative, attractive, and results-oriented.
Lead and Systems Coordinator – Shanquin Johnson
Shanquin takes on all the challenges, training and technical problem solving that go into mapping, designing and running a sophisticated digital customer relations management system that runs accross multiple software platforms. No challenge is too great for our “ShanQueen”, as she is fondly known. She also tackles training and upskilling of staff, from booking agents to investment strategists and rentals portfolio mangers when it comes to operating the CRM systems which provide crucial touchpoints for customer experience journeys across the group of companies.
General Manager of Group Content – Marguerite MacRobert
Marguerite MacRobert brings a wealth of experience to the team. She was an English lecturer at Stellenbosch University for 8 years, and published everything from poetry, fashion magazine articles, and short stories, to textbooks and international research journal articles and book chapters. Before joining IGrow, she was a freelance blog and website copywriter across multiple industries, and owned an events company for 5 years. She is passionate about language, creativity, and communication.
Visualisation Specialist & Creative Marketing Manager – Hayley van Deventer
Hayley van Deventer is IGrow’s Creative Marketing Manager, and has more than 15 years of experience in interior architecture, design, as well as 3D visualisation. She brings property plans and construction sites to life with photo-realistic visuals, with an aim of inspiring investor confidence. Hayley ensures brand consistency across all platforms. Her cutting-edge tools and skilled AI and walk-through renders help showcase IGrow’s developments with aesthetic and design accuracy.
Honouring IGrow’s Women leaders and team managers this Women’s Month
Women’s Day in South Africa 2025 is a reminder of the progress we have made as a country. At IGrow Wealth Investments, we are proud that these incredible women run a large number of our top-performing business units. They foster passion and use their expertise and knowledge to benefit the entire IGrow Group.
What makes their contributions ever more inspiring is that a large portion of these women are IGrow property owners, too. They hold property portfolios in their place of work, achieving success in utilising the same strategies and procedures we offer our clients. The alignment between leadership and real insight into client experience builds IGrow’s credibility, transparency, and authenticity. This shows you that our leaders walk the talk.
We affirm our commitment to supporting women in business, and women creating financial freedom for themselves and their loved ones through property investment.
To all the women leaders of IGrow Wealth Investments, we would like to extend a massive thank you this Women’s Month. Your passion and knowledge are inspiring to the entire IGrow team.
Contact an IGrow Investment Specialist today to begin your property investment journey or continue growing your property portfolio.
