This is my story

It started with technology. I was fascinated by it from a young age, first as someone who simply used it, then as someone who needed to know how it worked behind the screen.

So in high school I taught myself to build websites with code. HTML, CSS and JavaScript came first, then other languages. Nobody asked me to, and it wasn’t a career plan. It was a passion long before it was ever a business. I just loved making things work, and I spent hours building for the web because I enjoyed it.

That passion became a skill other people needed, and I began building websites.

Because I loved business as much as technology, I then started a Bachelor of Business Science in Computer Science at the University of Cape Town, a degree that brought the two together. While I was studying, the skill I had taught myself led to my first formal role, as a front-end developer.

Running came the same way, almost by accident. I picked it because it looked like the easiest sport, and at first I didn’t enjoy it at all. Then I challenged myself to run a whole route without stopping, and something changed.

Running became a passion, then a community, then a brand. I fell in love with trail running, especially the long distances. I shared the journey online, people joined me, and it led to partnerships with brands, including three years as a sponsored global ASICS ambassador.

It was my first real lesson, personally, in what content and a personal brand can do. And the trails have taught me far more than that: discipline, consistency, how to push myself, and how to work my way back after an injury.

My first formal role was at a strategic marketing consultancy that ran campaigns for global technology brands. I joined as a front-end developer focused on marketing.

I built the assets behind lead generation campaigns, using modern marketing tools: landing pages, email campaigns and marketing automations designed to convert. I managed email marketing databases, worked with clients and campaign strategists on customer journeys, calls to action and conversion copy, and used data to keep improving the results.

That’s where I fell in love with automation. It is also where something shifted in me. Until then I had loved coding for its own sake. Here I became obsessed with the commercial side of technology: what it can do for a business, and how it drives growth.

Then I stepped back from everything. I left my job and took time to rethink what I wanted to build and how I wanted to use what I’d been given. I chose to go all in on my own company.

In May 2022 I founded Content Calling, a marketing company focused on content and business development. We’ve worked with more than 30 clients around the world, mainly in the UK, US, Canada and the UAE, and at our peak had a team of eight across the globe.

By 2023 I was already deeply interested in AI. These were the early days. ChatGPT had been public for less than a year, most businesses had never heard of tools like Claude, and AI was nothing like what it is today.

Everything up to that point had prepared me for it. I had taught myself to build with code. I had built marketing campaigns with automation and modern tools. And through Content Calling, my focus had become helping businesses grow. So the moment I started working with AI, I could see it was the first technology able to change how every part of a business runs, and everything I’d learned pointed straight at it.

Later that year I founded my AI company in Cape Town and began AI implementation work with my first businesses in South Africa. Today it’s Apostello Group, based in Dubai, helping businesses around the world make AI deliver measurable results.

My faith in Jesus Christ sits at the centre of it all. I’m a follower of Christ, and the Word of God shapes how I live and work. I look to Joseph and Daniel: men who served faithfully wherever they were placed, did their work with such excellence and integrity that it carried them before kings, and never compromised who they were. That’s the standard I want for my work. Excellence as stewardship of what I’ve been given.

I love the Word of God, and I love talking about it. I love time with my Christian community, in Bible study and in worship, and I’m grateful for every chance to share what Christ has done in my life.