SmartGuide’s management team have been involved in tourism for most of their careers and have an excellent understanding of the requirements of both the service providers within the industry and the needs of the tourists. They have travelled extensively through Southern Africa and the world and loved it, learning an enormous amount along the way. This experience, together with our partnerships with top tour operators, guides, historians and storytellers, allows us to provide visitors to Southern Africa with valuable content.
The management team consists of:
Paul de Waal (Business)
After graduating with a civil engineering degree from the University of Cape Town, Paul worked as a property developer for 5 years before getting involved in the tourism industry. Over the last 10 years Paul has successfully started numerous tourism-related businesses with his business partner Keith Burton. These companies include Mountain Range Products, Fastfunction, Africa Bespoke, African Agenda and the most recent venture, SmartGuide. Over the last 2 years Paul has focussed all of his energy on SmartGuide. He is also on the Board of the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway Company, one of Cape Town’s premier tourist attractions.
Andrew Ardington (Content)
After obtaining a degree in Agricultural Economics from the University of Natal Andrew spent two years travelling in Europe and North America. On returning to South Africa he became a game ranger at Mala Mala Game Reserve and started a career in tourism and photography which now spans more than 15 years. From the bush he moved to the battlefields of KwaZulu-Natal where he first worked with the internationally-renowned David Rattray before he developed Three Trees at Spioenkop in partnership with the Rattrays. Andrew has continued to travel far and wide across Southern Africa and has a great passion for and a diverse historical and natural knowledge of the region. Andrew is in charge of the development and writing of content for SmartGuide.
Keith Burton (Finance)
Keith graduated from the University of Cape Town with a business degree and spent time working in corporate finance and project management before embarking on a career in the conference/ tourism industry. Keith manages the day-to-day running of African Agenda which is an international conference organiser and is responsible for the financial management of the other companies in the group, namely Africa Bespoke, Fastfunction and SmartGuide. Keith currently chairs the Western Cape committee of the Southern African Association for the Conference Industry (SAACI) and also sits on the national committee of the organisation. He is exceedingly thorough, has excellent management skills, and is a leader that brings out the best in the people working around him.
Paul Carmel (Technology)
Paul honed his programming skills during his engineering Bachelors and Masters degrees at the University of Cape Town. After graduating, Paul worked for a number of multinationals in London before returning to South Africa to take up a role as a senior architect of Delos Technology and later as a Senior Software Architect for financial software solutions firm AFA Systems. In 2008 Paul started his own company, New Media Labs, which focuses on Web2.0/New Media technologies. The technology skills and vast experience Paul brings to SmartGuide is invaluable to its success.
