Luciano Zaina MBA

Founder

After completing high school in Johannesburg, Luciano completed a B. Social Science degree, Majoring in Economics, at the University of Cape Town. Whilst working at the Italian Trade Commission as trade analysist, Luciano completed his B. Comm. Honours in Economics at the University of the Witwatersrand.

After a short career in sales, where Luciano developed his interpersonal skills, Luciano joined one of the first South African based, offshore investment product-provers, TMA International, as a consultant. He was retrenched following a take-over and took the opportunity to establish an investment advisory business in 2001 to provide specialist offshore investment advice to South Africans.

As Managing Director, he was responsible for developing the business into a fully-fledged wealth management company Zaina Wealth Management, whilst still engaging with clients as offshore investment advisor. The company was one of the early participants in the ASISA internship program for previously disadvantaged financial planners. He co-founded a second business in 2005, St Paul’s Financial Services, to provide specialist investment advice to offshore trusts. Luciano remains an astute offshore investment advisor able to bring his extensive experience to his clients.

Luciano undertook his Masters in Business Administration, in Executive Management Studies at the University of Cape Town, which he completed in 2018. This kindled an interest in Leadership and he wrote his dissertation in the field of leadership-as-practice. His paper formed the basis of further research, which was published in Leadership (Exploring within the ‘black-box’ of leadership to make sense of the performative dynamics of conversation, Sage, 2019). Luciano has lectured, supervised and assessed students on the topic of leadership and leadership-as-practice at the GSB of the University of Cape Town, and is interested in the construct of leadership, how it is practiced and the role it is perceived to play in organizing.

He lives in Cape Town with his wife, and their two sons. In his free time Luciano enjoys being a father, woodwork, cooking, hiking and reading about business.