Extra-Curricular Activities

Cigar Aficionado

My appreciation for cigars began in 1998, and it grew into far more than smoking — an interest in craftsmanship, culture, history and what separates a genuinely well-made cigar from the rest.

Travel deepened it. My interest in Spanish culture, and in Cuba’s history and cigar heritage, gave the hobby a context I still find fascinating.

Since I stopped drinking and became more conscious of my health, I have cut back sharply on both smoking and collecting. I still appreciate a fine cigar, but I approach it with far greater moderation now.

I also believe a hobby need not stay a personal expense. Through Tandwa’s Joint and Ten10 Bar & Lounge I offer selected premium cigars and exclusive whiskies to clients and collectors, turning something I have loved for years into something commercially productive.

Hunting & Marksmanship

My interest in firearms started in the early 1980s, when I was still a Cub, and sharpened around 1984 and 1985 while I was growing up in Pietermaritzburg. I collected every firearms publication I could find and read constantly about equipment and the technical side of shooting.

What held me was never the firearm alone. It was the mechanics — why one calibre behaves differently from another, what actually produces accuracy, and how equipment is designed for a purpose.

Hunting added patience, field awareness, respect for the environment and the judgement that must come before any shot is taken.

Marksmanship suits my technical nature best. Stance, breathing, sight picture, trigger control, consistency — small errors show immediately, which makes it an honest discipline, and it remains a serious interest built on responsible ownership and steady improvement.

Penetration Testing

My work in penetration testing and cybersecurity has been largely self-taught. I have always enjoyed understanding how systems work, pushing them to their limits in controlled environments, then figuring out how to repair and secure them.

Linux is central to it. I spend my time in Kali and Ubuntu, on servers, networking, security tooling and command-line work, and in practical exercises such as Capture the Flag.

What draws me is the investigative side. You are always asking what was overlooked, what was misconfigured, and where a system might fail for someone who approaches it differently from the person who built it.

I am now formalising that experience through recognised professional certifications, and the same skills increasingly support the cybersecurity, digital-forensics and technical work inside my companies.