Company Secretary (Cape Town)

We are seeking an experienced Company Secretary to work alongside the CEO Office of a fast-moving, multi-entity technology group with operations across Africa and Europe. This is a hands-on contract role for a self-directed governance professional who can hold the corporate backbone of the group together — statutory compliance, legal and contract administration, and corporate transactions — while a growing finance team assumes day-to-day transactional work.

The role carries real breadth: from maintaining statutory registers across five jurisdictions, to running NDA and contract processes, to supporting live fundraising and mergers & acquisitions activity. You will be trusted with sensitive, board-level information and expected to operate with minimal supervision.

• Maintain corporate registers and statutory records for all group entities across multiple jurisdictions.

• Manage annual returns, statutory filings and compliance deadlines per jurisdiction, ensuring no missed filings.

• Coordinate regular entity governance meetings with senior leadership, maintaining standing agendas and tracking action items across entities.

• Monitor regulatory compliance across all operating jurisdictions, maintaining per-jurisdiction compliance calendars.

• Draft, circulate and file board resolutions, minutes and written consents; maintain the resolution register.

• Maintain shareholder registers and capitalisation table updates, coordinating with finance on equity movements.

• Manage the ISO certification process and supporting documentation, coordinating cross-functional inputs.

• Coordinate KYC / AML documentation for banking, partner and vendor relationships.

• Track and manage insurance renewals and coverage (D&O, professional indemnity, cyber), verifying adequacy.

• Draft, review and manage all NDAs (inbound and outbound) using standard templates, escalating non-standard terms.

• Maintain the contract register as a single source of truth — status, expiry and renewal dates for all active agreements.

• Instruct and coordinate external legal counsel on complex or jurisdiction-specific matters, tracking outstanding items.

• Manage industry-body and partner relationships, including scheduling, membership obligations and related legal coordination.

• Maintain the intellectual property register — patents, trademarks and domain registrations.

• Track patent and trademark filing deadlines and renewals, maintaining the prosecution timeline with no missed dates.

• Support live M&A and investment transactions end to end — coordinating due diligence, data room preparation and management, and the flow of transaction documentation.

• Prepare and coordinate funding memos and investment documentation in support of fundraising activity.

• Manage the corporate housekeeping that underpins transactions: shareholder registers, cap table integrity, board and shareholder approvals, and condition-precedent tracking.

• Support post-transaction integration and entity rationalisation, including new-entity set-up, restructures and wind-downs across jurisdictions.

• Act as a coordination point between the CEO Office, finance, and external legal and financial advisors throughout the deal lifecycle.

• Coordinate bank statement collection and reconciliation support across all entity accounts, feeding the finance team.

• Support quarterly financial reporting and board-pack preparation, compiling inputs and holding deadlines.

• Track and report corporate overhead against budget, flagging variances.

• Oversee invoice approval routing, proof of payment and filing, retaining approval authority above agreed thresholds.

• Administer the corporate credit card programme, including reconciliation and expense-policy compliance.

• Coordinate payroll across entities with external payroll providers.

• Administer the group password-management platform — access, vaults and onboarding/offboarding — with quarterly audits.

• Coordinate IT onboarding and offboarding for joiners and leavers (accounts, access, equipment, documentation).

• Manage corporate subscriptions and vendor relationships, tracking renewals and flagging budget impact.

• Draft and maintain corporate policies (travel, expense, IT, HR).

• Coordinate confidential strategic and special projects directed by the CEO Office, tracking milestones and deliverables.

• Maintain the corporate document-management system, including folder structure, access controls and archiving.

Experience & Skills

Essential

CANDIDATES MUST BE BASED IN CAPE TOWN (role is hybrid but not remote).

There is a strong preference for candidates who are available immediately or within a short notice period.

• 8+ years in a company secretarial, corporate governance, corporate legal or comparable role.

• Demonstrable experience supporting M&A, fundraising or other corporate transactions, including due diligence and data-room management.

• Proven multi-entity, multi-jurisdiction experience — comfortable managing statutory compliance across several countries at once.

• Strong contract and NDA drafting, review and administration skills.

• Highly organised and deadline-driven, with a track record of never missing statutory filings.

• Discreet and trustworthy with sensitive, board-level and personal information.

• Self-directed and able to operate with minimal supervision in a fast-moving environment.

• Experience across African and European jurisdictions (e.g. South Africa, UK, Netherlands, Nigeria, Kenya).

• Exposure to IP / patent administration.

• Familiarity with ISO certification processes.

• A relevant professional qualification (see note below).

Professional Qualifications

A formal qualification is advantageous but not required. Candidates with either of the following are encouraged to apply, as is anyone with an equivalent track record built through experience:

• Chartered Secretary / Chartered Governance qualification.

• A legal qualification (e.g. LLB or admitted attorney).

Engagement & Location

• Independent contractor engagement (fixed-term or retainer).

• Hybrid remote: candidates must be based in Cape Town.

• Occasional coordination across time zones given the group's international footprint.