Magda Wierzycka’s biography: everything you need to know about the billionaire
Magda Wierzycka is one of the world's best business minds. The tycoon owns Sygnia Ltd, which is one of the largest financial technology companies in South Africa. The firm manages assets worth over R180 billion. Wierzycka advocates for honest ways of earning a living.
Source: UGC
Magda is a strong anti-corruption activist in South Africa. She often condemns corruption scandals like the Gupta’s Family state capture and their associates (KPMG and Steinhoff International). Wierzycka believes that public resources should not be squandered and people should earn their wealth through honest means.
Profile summary
| Full name | Magdalena Franciszka Wierzycka |
| Famous as | Magda Wierzycka |
| Born | 14 October 1970 |
| Age | 52 years (as of 2022) |
| Birthplace | Gliwice, Poland |
| Nationality | South African |
| Ethnicity | White |
| Ancestry | Polish-Jewish |
| High school | Pretoria High School for Girls |
| College | University of Cape Town |
| Qualification | Bachelor of Business Science, Postgraduate diploma in Actuarial Science |
| Occupation | Entrepreneur, actuary, and anti-corruption activist |
| Former workplaces | Southern Life, Alexander Forbes Group Holdings, Coronation Fund Managers |
| Current workplace | Sygnia Ltd |
| Position | Co-founder and CEO |
| Spouse | Simon Peile |
| Children | 2 sons |
| Languages | English, Afrikaans |
| Current residence | Cape Town |
| @magda_wierzycka | |
| @wierzyckamagda |
Magda Wierzycka's biography
Magdalena Franciszka Wierzycka was born on 14 October 1970 in Gliwice, Poland. She hails from a Polish-Jewish ancestry. Her parents were doctors and their names remain undisclosed to the public. Magda's Jewish grandmother was a Holocaust survivor.
How old is Magda Wierzycka?
Magda Wierzycka's age is 52 years as of December 2022.
Magda Wierzycka's early life
Magda's parents, her grandmother, sister, and brother shared a 2-bedroom flat. Although her parents provided a good life for their family, Poland became unbearable when the communist system failed.
In 1982, the family escaped at night to Polish refugee camp at Traiskirchen in Austria. The situation in Poland deteriorated when the military took over, declared a state-of-emergency, closed all borders, and implemented a martial law.
Wierzycka's family stayed at the refugee camp in Austria for a year. Her parents dug ditches to earn a living. In 1983, they got medical doctor jobs at 1st Military Hospital in Pretoria, South Africa. Magda was 13 years old when she moved with her family to South Africa and settled at Sunnyside in Pretoria.
Source: UGC
Educational background
Magda attended the Pretoria High School for Girls, where she learnt Afrikaans and English. They were the primary languages of instruction in South African schools. Afrikaans was challenging but she managed to learn.
She enrolled for a Bachelor of Business Science at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and later got a Postgraduate diploma in Actuarial Science in 1993 because it was the only course she could get a bursary.
Career history
Wierzycka sold cheese and cold meat at a supermarket while in high school. In 1993, she joined Southern Life (now part of MMI Holdings Limited) as a product development and investment actuary.
Magda qualified as a Fellow of the Faculty of Actuaries in Edinburgh in 1994. Meanwhile, she worked for two years as an investment consultant for Alexander Forbes' retirement fund clients.
In 1997, Wierzycka joined Coronation Fund Managers in Cape Town as a director and Head of Institutional Business. Magda Wierzycka and Thys du Toit helped build the start-up company into one of the largest asset managers in South Africa.
Magda Wierzycka and Thys du Toit's toxic workplace experience
She left Coronation in 2003 to assume the role of CEO of the African Harvest Fund Managers. In Magda Wierzycka's book, He Broke Me, she claimed to have suffered emotional abuse under Coronation CEO Thys du Toit.
Wierzycka negotiated the sale of African Harvest Fund Managers to Cadiz Asset Management in 2006. The transaction led to the establishment of a financial technology company called Sygnia Asset Management.
Magda became Sygnia Limited's CEO in 2006. Within a decade, she made it the second largest multi-management company in SA by growing its assets from R2 billion to R162 billion. Sygnia Limited offers low-cost investment management services, savings products, and administration solutions to organizations and retail investors.
It was listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) in October 2015. Besides running her company, Magda serves in the Africa Advisory Board of the Center for African Studies at Harvard University.
Source: UGC
How much is Magda Wierzycka's wealth?
Wierzycka might be the richest woman in South Africa. She owns about 30% of Sygnia Ltd with her spouse. The public cannot estimate Magda Wierzycka's net worth because she keeps her wealth private. When City Press requested an interview with her about her wealth, a Sygnia Ltd official responded on Wierzycka's behalf:
Ms Wierzycka would like to decline...with the amount of kidnappings, she would not want to bring more attention to herself.
How much is Magda Wierzycka's salary?
The lady must be a billionaire since her annual salary at Sygnia Limited is around R3.339 million.
Magda Wierzycka's family
Magda Wierzycka's husband, Simon Peile, is her business partner. The couple co-founded Sygnia Limited and have two sons. In 2019, the Sygnia CEO gifted her husband R215 million worth of shares to restructure their personal interests in the company. Magda Wierzycka's sons avoid the limelight.
Where is Magda Wierzycka's house?
Magda lives in Cape Town with her husband and sons.
Magda Wierzycka and Elon Musk's Twitter confrontation
In June 2021, she criticized Tesla CEO Elon Musk for using social media to execute market-moving strategies she perceived as fraudulent. According to Wierzycka, Musk hiked Bitcoin prices by writing tweets, including those mentioning Tesla’s $1.5 billion BTC purchase.
Wierzycka wished the authorities could have investigated him for manipulating crypto prices because he sold a big part of his exposure at the peak. Musk’s public statements on Bitcoin and him reversing Tesla’s position on accepting cryptocurrency as an online payment form constituted price manipulation.
Magda Wierzycka and the Guptas' corruption exposé
Magda Wierzycka's family flee SA to the Maldives in April 2017, a few weeks before emails exposing how the Guptas controlled the country were leaked.
Since the Sygnia CEO and her family feared for their lives, her lawyers advised them to flee South Africa for safety before the Guptas linked Magda to the leaked emails.
Source: UGC
Wierzycka denied leaking the emails to the City Press and Sunday Times newspapers. According to her book, Magda: My Journey, she unveiled the emails to the Daily Maverick when the magazine's editor, Branko Brkicafter, approached her, and this was after the emails had leaked.
Magda's family returned to SA after arranging personal security for themselves. The lady feared the Daily Maverick would publish the information in sections, instead of releasing it all at once. She, therefore, sent copies of the data to heads of trade unions, heads of political parties, Cabinet ministers, and other public figures to protect the whistleblowers.
A bodyguard accompanied one of her sons to school for two years and state security agents followed her everywhere. Moreover, people tapped her cellphone and state authorities would stop and harass her at the airport for at least an hour every time she flew into South Africa. This went on until until Jacob Zuma resigned as president.
Facts about Magda Wierzycka
- Wierzycka admires Makhosi Khosa, ThuliMadonsela, Malala Yousafzai, and other iconic women.
- She makes strategic plans to succeed in a male-dominated business world.
- Magda occasionally takes time off work to travel the world with her spouse and sons.
- Wierzycka's Twitter account has 63.7k followers (as of December 2022), but is not verified..
- Her Instagram page has a number of followers, and is also not verified.
- The business woman does not have an account on Facebook.
- Magda shares financial and business tips, trends, and opportunities on Twitter.
Who is Magda Wierzycka?
Magda Wierzycka is a South African billionaire entrepreneur, actuary, and anti-corruption activist.
Magda Wierzycka rose from abject poverty to riches through honest means. The South African mogul inspires women to pursue their dreams and challenges people to break away from poverty cycles surrounding their families.
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Source: Briefly News
