Patrick Parring

Patrick Parring, a prominent South African business leader, is CEO of ParEquity Group.

He is concurrently Chairman of Synergos Southern Africa, a pioneering poverty alleviation think tank focused on youth development amongst other, and NICRO Enterprise, a nascent incubator for social enterprise projects in South Africa with an emphasis on entrepreneurial opportunities for ex-offenders, and in particularly the youth.

Patrick is a great believer in the power of raw ambition tempered by humility and consistently high standards of self. Raised with his ten siblings by his grandparents in a poor environment in the midst of Apartheid, the odds were stacked against him. But Patrick has defied them.

He founded his first company in 1989. Since then, he has sat on more than 20 (for profit and non profit) boards. His current philanthropic passion is nurturing the Southern African venture philanthropy market space, and creating opportunities in which young socially-minded African entrepreneurs can flourish, and develop African solutions to African problems.