Meet The Habsburg Team

The business backgrounds of our Directors and investment team are diverse and include general management, consulting, turnaround management and technologist. This diversity has been further strengthened by the knowledge gained through investing together over several business cycles.

Pedro Viudez

Founder

Pedro is an accomplished Entrepreneur and Executive. He has played a key role in building some of our key Technology, Media, and Telecommunications businesses.

Pedro founded, along with two ex-Andersen colleagues (Demetri Manias and Kris Mietz), Enterprise Outsourcing, which is a pioneer in providing “Converged” Cloud Solutions and continues to be a leading technology provider.

Pedro has been instrumental in developing niche companies such as Secured Enterprise, Finance Apps, HR Artis, CRM Apps, eNew Media, which have become successful companies within their own right.

Pedro founded Habsburg in 2000 in London, and he enjoys focusing on early-stage companies. He has demonstrated a unique understanding of what the market needs, as well as their prerequisites in software design. This assists him in guiding start-ups from concept to execution and by nurturing businesses with “network effect” and “long tail”.


Before Habsburg, he served as a partner of Arthur Andersen for 10 years, he headed up part of Andersen technology business across Europe, Middle East, India, and Africa (EMEIA). He also served as the Chief Information Officer of Tiger Brands Limited for 5 years.

Pedro was born in Cuba, grew up in Barcelona (Spain) and his primary residence is in Johannesburg, South Africa, Spain, and Australia. He has studied and furthered his education at various institutions such as Barcelona University, Harvard Business School, Kellogg’s School of Management as well as Columbia.

Beyond start-ups and technology, Pedro has completed a number of private equity investments in Consumer Goods, Manufacturing and Real Estate. Pedro provides advisory to several companies, and he continues to be a board member in many of the equity investments held by Habsburg within these industries.

Schalk van der Merwe

COO

Schalk is an experienced IT professional and Executive with a demonstrated history of working in the information technology and services industry. He has played a key role in leading and growing some of our key Technology, Media, and Telecommunications businesses, especially Enterprise Outsourcing, which is a pioneer in providing “Converged” Cloud Solutions and continues to be a leading technology provider.

Schalk has been instrumental in developing, growing and leading niche companies such as Secured Enterprise, eNew Media and DBA Architect, which have become successful companies within their own right.

Schalk is skilled in Service Delivery, Server Architecture, VMware ESX, Enterprise Architecture, and Storage. These skills have helped him develop a key sense of understanding implementing innovative digital solutions for any industry that will allow them to grow.

Schalk was born in South Africa, grew up in Pretoria and his primary residence is in Pretoria, South Africa. He has studied and furthered his education at various institutions such Tshwane University of Technology, where he obtained an Information Technology Diploma focused on Information Technology, as well as UNISA where he completed courses in Business Studies.

Sha-né Purchase

HR

Sha-né is head of HR at Habsburg Limited and has held this position since 2021, where she is responsible for overseeing the organization's human resource operations and strategies. She plays a key role in sourcing candidates that will enhance the capabilities and execution of tasks for multiple companies.

Sha-né is skilled in psychology and understanding the human psyche, these skills has helped her in finding talented candidates that increase the value and capabilities of the organizations that they are placed under. Her key sense of discovering talented candidates that fit in with the corporate culture and other workforces has allowed the companies to grow.

Sha-né was born in South Africa and her primary residence is in Johannesburg, South Africa. She has studied and furthered her education at the North-West University Potchefstroom where she has obtained her degree in Psychology & English and went on to obtain her Honours degree in Psychology from the same institution.

John Dismore

Director

John Dismore is the CEO of Habsburg Limited. In addition to his responsibilities with Habsburg, John is Director and Investor of Fig.ly. Prior to joining Habsburg, John was an Investor and Director of Slideware which was sold to Salesforce.com, of which John was an Executive as well as being responsible for the development of Chatter.

Stephané Rouviére

Director

Stéphane is a director of Habsburg Limited. In addition to his responsibilities with Habsburg, Stéphane is System Manager at HSCE (Honeywell Security and Custom Electronics). He has held this position since 2002. Prior to joining Honeywell, Stéphane worked as a software engineer at Shiva International and Intel Corporation where he spent 3½ years.

Habsburg's team

The strength and depth of Habsburg's private equity team allows the firm to pursue investments with great flexibility, moving aggressively into attractive opportunities and capitalizing on changes in the global economic landscape. Habsburg's private equity team has completed more than 25 investments in a broad range of industry sectors.

Knowledgeable

Our organization size and scope allow for an intimate knowledge of regional markets worldwide and direct access to international resources, uncovering investment opportunities that can only be identified with the help of an active global network.

Our Business Experience

The investment team at Habsburg consists of more than 15 professionals, most with prior consulting or business experience.