Masakhe 02_DIGITAL PAPERTURN - Flipbook - Page 31
LEGENDARY PROFESSIONALS
says he “might have done something
else”, but what was good about
the program was its “breadth”. He
stretched himself further, adding
an accounting major and taking
on finance courses. It was this
multi-disciplinary grounding that
gave him the confidence to work
internationally, leading him to a
Master’s in Real Estate at Cambridge.
The cohort there was a microcosm
of the global industry. “Sixteen in
class, ten or twelve nationalities,”
he recalls, and “lots of peer-to-peer
sharing,” mentioning he learned
the intricacies of listed property
from a classmate. He returned to
South Africa and, in 2009, in the
wreckage of the great financial crash,
was “fortunate” to land a spot in a
graduate program. From there, he
moved through private equity and
property finance, culminating in a
role at Investec Asset Management,
which became Ninety One, where he
managed a global fund worth a billion
dollars.
Though he had reached the
pinnacle of a secure career, Clark
wanted to start his own firm. “I knew
from a young age I wanted to do my
own thing,” he states plainly. “I hadn’t
yet found my angle.” That angle came
into focus during the pandemic.
“Covid was a big inflection point,” he
says. As economic activity around
the world slowed, the inefficiencies
of the property sector became more
obvious. The sector is “over-reliant on
manual processes”, and often “slow
to adapt”, Clark notes through sips of
his coffee. With his business partner,
Matthew Marshall, he established
This small detail feels like a fitting
metaphor for Clark’s career. He is
a product of the institutional world
(UCT, Cambridge, Investec) but has
chosen his own path. The son of a
land surveyor, he had “always been
around property”, and the UCT
Property Studies degree felt like
a logical choice. Looking back, he
ISSUE 2
29
DECEMBER 2 025
