PROFILE: MONICA SINGER

MONICA SINGER (BACC 1987) IS A VOCAL ADVOCATE TO ADOPT BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY IN AFRICA. SHE BELIEVES SHE'S FOUND A WAY TO ELIMINATE FRAUD AND CORRUPTION.

BY JACQUELINE STEENEVELDT

In 1983 Monica Singer ran away from home. The only daughter of a granite quarry miner in Uruguay, she followed her boyfriend, whom she later married, to South Africa — escaping the sheltered South American country and a difficult family background.

“I didn’t tell my parents until a week before I left and a friend paid for the ticket. That was my opportunity,” she recalls.

Monica had been biding her time. At 21, she was in her second year of studying towards a degree in accountancy. But the family business was off limits to her as a woman. “I was kept away from business things. The thinking was women get married and a husband can look after them. With my personality I wasn’t going to settle for that.”

Accountancy suited her taste for order, but what she found in Johannesburg was a blow. Apartheid. “It was traumatic — a terrible time. I thought God punished me for what I did.”

She found a job at Arthur Young (currently EY) and was given credits to start the second year towards a Bachelor of Accountancy at Wits. “I worked during the day and took a bus after 5pm to attend lectures until 8.30pm and that was my life. It was hard, very hard.

“But the happiest time of my life was to be at Wits. I had such an absolute desire to be there. I didn’t ever miss a lecture. In the final year of doing accounting part-time, I was one of the top 10 students.”

Yet she never took her success for granted. “After every exam, I’d cry thinking that I’d failed. I was obsessed with a dream of being a chartered accountant.”

Today, she chats from the slopes of Lion’s Head overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in Bantry Bay — much like the coastline of her home town, Montevideo — for a Zoom interview. Monica is the South Africa lead at ConsenSys, one of the world’s biggest blockchain companies, based in the US. She has been working from home since 2017 and is a vocal champion for the adoption of blockchain technology in Africa.

“We can run a company from anywhere in the world. From day one, we were remote at ConsenSys.”

As she’s a board member of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants and the Accounting Blockchain Coalition (which sets the audit, accounting and tax guidelines for crypto assets based in the US), Monica’s predictions about the future of money and the impact of blockchain technology on all industries are getting attention. She brings to it not only youthful energy and curiosity, but three decades of experience in executive roles.

“At the moment it feels daunting because the technology is a bit raw, but it’s similar to the evolution of the internet. In the beginning it was complicated and scary. Nobody wanted to use it, but now my mother can send emails, Facebook, send WhatsApps. Everybody can use it. That’s what I predict is going to happen,” she says.

Her career seems to have come full circle, since she began at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in 1990. Within a year she was made technical director representing South Africa on the international standards and auditing committees, a position she held until 1995 when she was poached by the World Bank. “I packed up my family and flew them to Washington, DC.” But when she got there she was disillusioned by the red tape and seeming lack of desire for change. She lasted eight months. “I quickly found out that less than 40% of funds allocated for social impact projects actually went to the right place.”

On her return to South Africa in 1996, she turned to Roy Andersen (CTA 1972), Executive President of the JSE at the time, for guidance. He offered her the challenge of re-engineering the way financial markets worked in South Africa. Although the banking system was one of the best in the world at the time, the stock market had fallen behind badly because everything was still settled with share certificates and cheques. “The process was slow and open to fraud, and investors were losing faith in the system,” she says.

Andersen thought Monica would be the ideal person for the job.

“I said: I know nothing about the stock market. He said: don’t worry, you’ll learn.” Her impact was phenomenal. She created and led a company, Strate Ltd, to bring electronic settlement to the JSE and to have access to it, no matter what their introduce transparency and efficiency. “When I started age there were 4 000 trades a day. By the time I left there were 350 000.”

In 2012 the World Economic Forum ranked South Africa the most progressive central securities depository. The country was In 2008, the document’s author, Satoshi Nakamoto (a also ranked top for regulation of securities exchanges — pseudonym), outlined a way to verify transactions withlargely due to the work of Monica and her team.

Professor Emeritus Barry Dwolatzky (BSc questioned the stability of the global financial system. It Eng 1975), Director at the Joburg Centre for Software offered a decentralised, transparent but secure solution to Engineering, has described Monica’s career crisply — record transactions. “anticorruption” and “digital transformation”.

After running Strate successfully for 19 years, Monica coin — blockchain — had changed the equation. still wanted to streamline transactions and do it all online. “I realised that’s exactly what I was looking for. All At the time the technology wasn’t up to the task. Until, in my life since I started to work as a chartered accountant 2015, she read a document titled: “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Cash System”. It made her cry.

In 2008, the document’s author, Satoshi Nakamoto (a pseudonym), outlined a way to verify transactions without any central authority. This was at a time when many questioned the stability of the global financial system. It offered a decentralised, transparent but secure solution to record transactions.

Monica understood that the technology behind bitcoin — blockchain — had changed the equation.

“I realised that’s exactly what I was looking for. All my life since I started to work as a chartered accountant I wanted to prevent corruption and audit failures. But it still happens because the system is broken.”

Unable to convince the Strate board to adopt the new technology, she left to concentrate on being an ambassador for blockchain applications across a number of industries. In May 2019 she was appointed as a Professor of Practice in the School of Accounting at the University of Johannesburg.

A confluence of circumstances such as increased connectivity accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the appetite to apply blockchain technology. Monica is a sought-after speaker for conferences and webinars.

Even the country’s banks are now willing to get involved in a simulation of a new kind of payment system. The trial, Project Khokha 2, will explore the use of digital currency, blockchain and tokenised money in South Africa.

The trial, Project Khokha 2, will explore the use of digital currency, blockchain and tokenised money in South Africa.

Monica says this could be a game-changer. If all South Africans had a digital currency account, there’d be no queueing for social grants, no ATM bombings, no cash bribes.

She says the decentralisation of finance that is unfolding worldwide will benefit the 1.7 billion people who have been left out of the banking system. “This technology is going to evolve and everyone in the world is eventually going to have access to it, no matter what their age group or status.”

While Monica worked as CEO at Strate, the company won the inaugural Conscious Company on 11 May 2017 out fo 75 companies nominated. Beside her are Prof Mervyn King and CEO of Conscious Companies Brenda Kali.

WITS MEMORIES

Wits is one of the best universities in the world – it lets you be, but if you need help, it’s available. The spirit of co-operation is what makes it a special place. I sit on international boards and the education I got from Wits was the best foundation I could have had. You get such value for money that doesn’t saddle you with debt for the rest of your life.

WORK-LIFE BALANCE

I was divorced and raised two children on my own. There was no balance – that’s wishful thinking. I missed out on many of the kids’ activities. When I was at home, I was 100% present. I raised them to be very independent and practical. Today they are unbelievable people and I am in awe of them.

WHY CHOOSE SOUTH AFRICA

It is a country of miracles – I saw how apartheid was overcome and the country transformed. South Africans just get on with things. I love that. South Africans are not superficial and have the ability to laugh at everything, which makes it easier to look at the bright side of life.

BLOCKCHAIN VS BITCOIN

Bitcoin is a store of value. Its central technology is blockchain. This is a register that is immutable and has one version of the truth of all transactions.