Management team
Roche janse van Rensburg
Co-founder, Chairman
Corlius Birkill
Co-founder, CEO
Cleo Ndhlovu
Chief Operating Officer
Johan Breytenbach
Finance Executive
Lizelle Kilian
Sales & Marketing Executive
Neuromodulation therapies
John Wales
Sales & Marketing Executive
Patient monitoring and hospital automation
Estelle Heymans
Senior Clinical Specialist
National
Leadership is about the team – the culture they keep and embrace; it’s about empathy for your customers, clients, employees and the communities where you do business; it’s about doing the right thing for the right reasons, being confident enough to take risks and responsible enough to think of those who your decisions and risks may affect.”
Roche brings 25 years of experience in the medical device industry through the development, design, manufacture and deployment of innovative products in the medical sector, with a healthy understanding of how to navigate the ever changing regulatory and compliance landscape.
He believes that life is all about the journey, and through the use of exponential technologies, tomorrow will always be better than today.
Mrs Lizelle Kilian has a diploma in General Nursing and has 10 years of nursing experience in different divisions including shift leadership. She has great leadership skills and shows a lot of compassion, sympathy, and empathy for both her patients and colleagues.
Lizelle held various senior manager positions in medical device and aesthetic medicine companies. Her career in Neuromodulation started as a Medical Sales Representative in some of the well-known medical device companies in South Africa where she developed and worked up to Area Manager level.
With 10 years of experience in Neuromodulation she joined Rhyzotherm and was introduced to patient monitoring and non-invasive Neuromodulation therapies. She is currently holding the position as Marketing and Sales Executive for Neuromodulation and operates nationally. Her responsibilities include leading the Neuromodulation sales team by providing guidance, training, and mentorship, setting sales quotas and goals, creating sales plans, analyzing data, assigning sales territories, and building a strong team.
Lizelle has a passion to help people and endeavour to maintain and grow excellent relationships built up throughout her career with patients, customers, and colleagues.
Ms Estelle Heymans is the Clinical Specialist responsible for training, strategy planning and execution within Rhyzotherm. She joined Rhyzotherm in 2023 and links into the patient monitoring portfolio on a national basis.
Estelle holds an Honours degree in Human Movement Sciences from Potchefstroom University. Estelle has a vast background in medical device and consumables sales as well as product management and business development.
Prior to Rhyzotherm, Estelle held a senior position at an International Company as well as other distribution companies as product manager and marketing lead. Estelle has extensive experience in Patient Monitoring, Ventilation, Airway Management, Vascular and Endoscopy products. She worked as a Specialist for an International company in Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, and Mauritius.
Estelle’s experience in the medical field is far reaching and has afforded her extensive knowledge and insight into the medical device industry.
Mr. Johan Breytenbach earned a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the Rand Afrikaans University (RAU).
He is a well-established Finance Executive with over 30 years of experience in the field. He possesses a strong set of hard skills – technical and analytical competence – and soft skills, such as strategic communication, commercial, interpersonal, and managerial competence. His responsibilities include overseeing corporate finance risk assessment, planning and analyzing the company’s financial strengths and weaknesses and proposing strategic directions, ensuring that the business remains profitable and compliant to corporate governance.
Before joining Rhyzotherm, he served for 15 years as Finance Executive within a large retail group operating throughout South Africa and Southern African countries (Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, Zambia). He also held a variety of roles of increasing importance held in listed companies within the retail, agriculture (SA and Mauritius), and medical fund industries.
Johan is a well-respected professional who is known for good judgment and integrity when engaging with stakeholders and managing people across the board. He also has a passion for building successful, motivated teams and in the process develop future leaders.
Ms. Cleo Ndhlovu has over 15 years of experience in the Medical and Biotechnology field. She holds a Master’s degree in Clinical Research from The University of Barcelona (Spain), Bachelors degree in Biotechnology from Tshwane University of Technology and a Quality Management Diploma from UNISA.
She is currently the Chief Operating Officer with responsibilities including operations, human resources and compliance management to increase overall efficiency for the company. Her focus is ensuring company growth, maintaining key operational procedures, creating new processes, and ensuring day-to-day operational excellence. She is involved in managing relationships with stakeholders, partners, suppliers and clients.
Before joining Rhyzotherm, she served in a variety of roles in the Microbiology, Clinical Research & Biotechnology sectors. She then spent 8 years as General Manager of a Tissue Engineering company where she was responsible for the overall strategy and management of the business.
Cleo’s strong leadership skills and ability to deliver innovative solutions to challenges, has ensured strategic resource utilization and sturdy organizational growth in all her leadership roles.
Mr John Wales is the Marketing and Sales Executive for Rhyzotherm. He joined Rhyzotherm in 2019 and manages the non-invasive patient monitoring portfolio, heading a team of Sales representatives operating Nationally.
John holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Rhodes University in Management and Commercial Law. He has many years of sales and management experience in the medical equipment arena. He is a natural leader with excellent communication skills and is a big picture thinker.
Prior to joining Rhyzotherm, John held senior positions in various international medical device companies, employed as National Sales Manager then Business Development Manager with specialization in Patient Monitoring. He worked in all areas of South Africa as well as other African countries (Angola, Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Namibia, Mauritius, Mozambique, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe) where he garnered a large network of customers and a vast knowledge of the medical industry within Africa.
John has built up many excellent relationships over the past 30 years within the medical industry and used these to grow the businesses that he has worked in.
Mr Corlius Birkill is the CEO and cofounder of Rhyzotherm. He possesses over 21 years’ experience in R&D, project management and component level design of electronic medical devices. He is skilled in conducting simulations, characterization, process modelling and integration in the development of new electronic devices. Corlius is responsible for running all facets of the business. He has a proven executive management track record and over 20 years of experience driving sales growth of medical device technology.
He holds a Bachelor of Engineering (BEng)(Hons), Bioengineering and Biomedical Engineering degree from the University of Pretoria as well as a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from University of South Africa. Corlius is a skilled medical device inventor with 4 patents under his name. He is part of a growing band of professionals who are using industry frustrations to come up with scientific inventions to solve medical health problems for the benefit of patients & health care professionals.
