Christelle Grohmann

Experience

Christelle Grohmann is a director in Advisory Services and has advised extensively in the tourism, hospitality and leisure, property and infrastructure sectors in her 30-year career. She was instrumental in establishing the Infrastructure Advisory service offering in South Africa and was the lead director for Infrastructure Advisory in sub-Saharan Africa for over 10 years.

Christelle joined Kessel Feinstein (which later became Grant Thornton) in February 1990 as a senior researcher in the Tourism, Hospitality and Leisure Consulting unit. She was promoted to the positions of consultant in 1992 and senior consultant in 1996 and in September 1997 was appointed as a director in the advisory business unit. Christelle was appointed as an equity director at Grant Thornton in June 2013 which continued into the merger with BDO.

Christelle carries out and heads project teams for macro research, economic impact assessments, valuations, marketing and organisational strategies, market feasibility studies, financial viability assessments, business case assessments and transaction advisory assignments.

She works extensively within South Africa in both the public and private sector and has also carried out projects in all southern African countries as well as further afield in Africa including Tanzania, Kenya, Ghana, Madagascar, Guinea, Benin and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Some specific assignments include:

• Economic impact assessments for major events such as FIFA World Cup, Rugby World Cups and the F1 Grand Prix.
• Financial modelling for skills centres and industrial parks on behalf of global Development Funding Institutions.
• Numerous feasibility studies for industrial parks, residential estates, shopping centres, mixed use complexes, casinos and gambling outlets, airports and hotels and resorts.
• Transaction advisory assignments (either as review director or project leader) for office accommodation, housing, student accommodation, skills centres, community precincts, resorts, provincial parks and transport PPPs.
• Tourism sector strategies for countries (South Africa, Kenya, Swaziland and Namibia), provinces (KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape) and numerous municipalities including City of Tswane and Ethekwini.
• Aviation strategies for KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and Northern Cape.
• Tourism policy development for Swaziland.
• Tourism investment strategies for Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal.
• Sector analysis for the business tourism industry.

Christelle has facilitated numerous workshops and large meetings and is proficient in using a range of facilitation approaches and tools.

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Qualifications

• BCom. Marketing & Business Economics
• Masters in Business Administration (MBA)

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Other

Christelle represents the firm at tourism industry associations such as the Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA) and the Southern African Tour and Transport Association (SATSA) as well as infrastructure associations such as the International Project Finance Association (IPFA). She is also a member of the Women’s Property Network and Institute of Directors SA.

Christelle regularly speaks at industry conferences (both tourism and infrastructure). She is a media spokesperson for the firm with regular articles in the written press and as well as appearances on radio and television on topics related to infrastructure, property and tourism.

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