About Us

Oceanrock was founded to offer the UK investment community an alternative solution to accessing world-class talent

Since 2016, we have worked with 100+ clients across private equity, private debt, corporate finance, strategy consulting and corporate.

We offer our clients the commercial benefits of off-shoring, with the same dedication to quality that you would expect from your own team.

Nestled at the foot of Table Mountain, our team of 50+ enjoy living in the most beautiful city on earth whilst working on a global stage.

Our aim is to provide an exceptional service to our clients. We want to be measured against the best in the world.

We are also passionate about building Oceanrock in a way that promotes the professional and personal development of our team. Our culture is at the heart of who we are and how we work.

Oceanrock exists to enable people and organisations to fulfil the potential of their tomorrow. Let us do that for you.

We want to be the world’s most trusted provider of outsourced front-office support. We also want to be a great place to work. These things go hand-in-hand. We set high standards for our team and support them with world class training and development. From there, earning the absolute trust of our clients is the holy grail – it enables us to build long-term partnerships based on our clients’ belief in how we work, how we think and our commitment to the quality of our output.

Andy Walford, Chairman & Founder

Leadership

Michael Benz

Managing Director

Michael has been with Oceanrock since the company was founded, joining the business from KPMG, where he had qualified as a CA(SA).

Michael co-leads the business and chairs the Executive Committee. He has overall responsibility for market engagement, strategy and business development.

Peter Waller

Managing Director

Peter joined Oceanrock in 2016 from Ernst & Young, where he qualified as a CA(SA) and spent five years in their transaction services business.

Peter co-leads the business with Michael, with overall responsibility for operations and strategy implementation. Prior to this, he headed up client delivery at the company.

Christian Bestel

Director

Christian joined Oceanrock in 2018 from Deloitte, where he qualified as a CA(SA).

In his time as an Analyst and Team Leader, Christian worked with close to 40 clients on 240 projects. He is now co-Head of Client Delivery, with a focus on business development, client relationships and team performance.

Abigail van der Merwe

Director

Abigail joined Oceanrock in 2018 from KPMG, where she qualified as a CA(SA).

Abigail serviced clients directly for three years before moving into a Team Leader role. In 2023, she also took up a senior role within Talent. She is now co-Head of Client Delivery and Head of Talent.

Andy Walford

Chairman & Founder

Prior to founding Oceanrock, Andy enjoyed a 15-year career in management consulting and private equity in London.

Andy is a UK chartered accountant, holds an MA from Cambridge University and an MBA from Columbia and London Business School.

“Oceanrock was set up to address a challenge I had faced during my private equity career – how to easily find, train and retain quality talent so that we could execute consistently at the highest level. Oceanrock helps overcome that challenge. We provide our clients with access to a world class team that extends their capacity and enables them to achieve more.”

Andy Walford

Julia Walford

Board Member & Co-founder

Julia co-founded Oceanrock in 2016. After a career outside of finance and consulting, Julia brings her passion for talent and organisational culture to Oceanrock.

As a Board Member, Julia continues to support the strategic, operational and talent functions within the business.

Meet the Team

Big enough to add meaningful capacity to your business, small enough to provide a personal solution that best meets your needs

Our Values

The strength of our business comes from the character, ability and skills of the people we hire, and the commitment of those people to a shared set of values.

Our values are used to maintain focus, hold each other to account and act as a guide for how decisions will be made.

They are at the heart of everything we do.

We have a passion for excellence

We set our standards uncomfortably high. Being OK isn’t enough. We inspire and push each other to be the best – and we hold each other to account when we miss the mark. Great work, properly thought through and executed to the highest level, is more important than job title, age, or length of service.

We take absolute responsibility for everything we do

Producing client-ready work is everybody’s job. We step up, give our best, meet our deadlines and own our output. No excuses. No blame. We acknowledge our mistakes and embrace the opportunity to learn from them. We communicate proactively and honestly with each other and our clients.

Complacency kills us. We are committed to improvement

We don’t rest on our laurels – we build on them. Development is a relentless journey of incremental steps, accelerated by focused practice. The journey takes courage and perseverance. We are in it together. Honest feedback, properly delivered and openly received, is critical to the process

We have generosity of spirit and build meaningful relationships

We truly care about the people we work with. We value development of the whole person, not just their ‘professional’ skills. We approach every day with a positive frame of mind. We are open and willing to share our time, our attention and our ideas.

As a team we are greater than ourselves alone

Collaboration strengthens our relationships and improves the quality of our work. We listen to the thinking of others and seek to understand their point of view. We treat each other with respect. We only say things about each other that we would say to their face.

Team Spotlight

Great people deserve to be in the spotlight

“I love the challenge of helping our clients understand new markets, both quantitatively and qualitatively, to identify investment opportunities”

Max Fitchet

Associate

Max joined Oceanrock in 2018 and leads a team of 8 – 10 to provide an exceptional service to an array of clients within the London investment community. He strives to fully understand his clients’ needs through asking the right questions at the right time, which lead to deliverables that go above and beyond. Max’s strong quantitative background means he also enjoys using data-driven insight to improve efficiencies and identify investment opportunities.

Prior to joining Oceanrock, Max completed his master’s degree at the University of Cape Town and took part in an international fellowship at the University of Massachusetts, USA.

Max was born and raised in sunny Cape Town and is an avid motorsports fan. You might see Max doing laps at a racetrack – on either two or four wheels – as long as it has an engine.