Richard Simanga Ngwenya, Head of Honeybadger Family Office and founder of Nisela Capital, is scheduled to speak at three major industry events in South Africa in October and November 2026, addressing the financial and digital infrastructure needed to support African businesses and attract investment.
Ngwenya will participate in Africa Energy Week (AEW) 2026 and Africa Tech Festival at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, as well as the Connected Banking Summit in Johannesburg. His sessions will examine challenges and opportunities across energy financing, payment systems and the underlying technology supporting Africa’s digital economy.
10,000 Delegates to Gather in Cape Town for African Energy Week 2026
Across the three events, Ngwenya plans to highlight a common issue: the importance of reliable financial systems, transparent information and operational infrastructure in helping businesses grow and making projects more attractive to investors.
“We tend to treat energy, banking and technology as separate conversations, but in practice they keep running into the same problem,” Ngwenya said. “Capital needs confidence, and businesses need systems that actually work.”
At the Connected Banking Summit in Johannesburg on October 14, Ngwenya is scheduled to join the power panel titled “Payments Modernization & Real-Time Rails in Southern Africa.” The discussion will explore how banks, fintech companies and regulators are responding to demand for faster and more interoperable payment systems.
Ngwenya will contribute insights from his role as Executive Chair of Wynk Group, whose WynkPay platform serves African merchants navigating fragmented payment systems, transaction reconciliation and everyday business operations.
He argues that payment technology must deliver more than the ability to process a transaction. Businesses also need tools that help them track incoming funds, reconcile payments and understand their financial position.
“The transaction is only part of it,” Ngwenya said. “A merchant needs to see what came in, reconcile it and know where the business stands at the end of the day. That’s where most of the value is.”
On October 15, Ngwenya is expected to participate in an Africa Energy Week panel titled “Solving the Offtaker Confidence Problem in Africa – Is Digital Infrastructure a Viable, Bankable Solution?” The session will consider whether technologies such as digital payments, artificial intelligence-based credit and risk assessment, cloud data platforms, interoperable energy systems and smart metering can improve confidence among energy developers, financiers, utilities, governments and consumers.
A key question is whether better data and greater visibility into payment flows can help lenders and investors assess risk more effectively. In markets where perceived risk can influence access to capital, improved information systems may contribute to more informed financing decisions.
Ngwenya believes digital infrastructure can play a role in addressing the information gaps that affect investment decisions, particularly in projects involving multiple stakeholders and complex payment arrangements.
His third engagement is scheduled for November 17 at the Africa Tech Festival in Cape Town. There, he will join a panel titled “The Invisible Fintech,” focusing on the infrastructure that supports digital financial services, including payment networks, application programming interfaces (APIs), identity and compliance systems, settlement processes and data platforms.
The discussion reflects Honeybadger Family Office’s investment interest in the technology operating behind consumer-facing financial products. While digital wallets and payment applications often attract public attention, the systems that enable transactions to function reliably across businesses and markets are also central to the sector’s development.
“Some of the most important technology is technology the end user never sees,” Ngwenya said. “What sits behind a product decides whether it works for ten customers, ten thousand, or across several African markets.”
Ngwenya brings more than two decades of experience in African financial services, spanning institutional banking, investment advisory, asset management and principal investment. His professional background includes roles at Deloitte, Barclays Africa and Investec. In 2011, he founded Nisela Capital, an investment management and advisory business whose group reportedly manages more than R4 billion in assets.
He has also advised on and led transactions valued at more than R50 billion across Africa, including the Northam Platinum/Zambezi transaction, which received the 2022 DealMakers Corporate Finance Deal of the Year award.
In August 2026, Ngwenya launched Honeybadger Family Office in Johannesburg. The organization brings together the family’s investment activities around three main areas: scaling African financial services and fintech businesses, investing in artificial intelligence applications for financial services, and working closely with early-stage companies.
Ngwenya says the development of Africa’s financial services sector requires investment that extends beyond funding alone. Businesses also need support in building operational systems, strengthening compliance, expanding distribution and earning customer trust.
“Africa’s financial services sector does not lack ambition or demand,” he said. “What it lacks is patient capital paired with operational depth: investors who will sit with a business through the unglamorous work of building systems, compliance, distribution and trust.” His participation across the three events is expected to contribute to ongoing discussions about how financial and digital infrastructure can support investment, improve business operations and strengthen the growth of African companies.
