Who We Are

Stefan has been a London based entrepreneur and financier for over 20 years.  He has served on the Boards of companies in the Industrial, medical, retail, financial, property and leisure sectors around the world.  In private and public companies listed on a number of international stock exchanges.  He serves as a senior advisor to a number of leading international business leaders.

In 2008, Stefan co-founded and is Deputy Chairman of the Central London Rough Sleepers Committee (CLRSC), which provides free meals and support for the homeless in London. It has served over 10,000 meals since inception. Stefan is the Chairman of Pump Aid, an award winning UK charity that provides clean water and sanitation to the poorest communities in rural Africa. Since inception Pump Aid has provided unique water pumps to over 9,500 communities in Zimbabwe and Malawi serving over 1.35 million people. To date, the charity has provided around 10% of the entire rural water supply points for both Zimbabwe and Malawi, combined. Stefan is the Chairman of Team Up, a UK social venture charity that provides education support to 1000′s of disadvantaged young people by training university students to give private tuition sessions across the UK.

Stefan was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2014 Queen’s New Years Honours List.

Cape Town born and educated. Studied PR & Journalism, and has over 13 years experience in the corporate hospitality, hotel, catering and food industry in South Africa and Europe.

Currently Director of her own South African design business plus her 5 years as an Account Executive for one of London’s largest Advertising Agencies, has fine-tuned her marketing and advertising skills on an international level.

Camille worked as an advisor to The Afri-CAN Cafes in Malawi since 2008 and was the driving force in bringing the project to South Africa.  Her passion and love for South Africa, eye for talent, design, hard work, new opportunities and any serious challenge, such as bringing the Afri-CAN Café to South Africa, is a small example of her ability and skill in bringing an idea to fruition.

Her people skills, empathy and talent in finding the right people to get the job done is an asset to any team.  Camille’s broad scope and variety of experience is a glimpse into the multitude of expertise she brings to the team.

Born and raised in Cape Town, Robert has broad-based experience providing management accounting support and tax administration to various non-profits and for-profit companies in and around Cape Town. He worked in the United States for six years and comes with a wealth of knowledge in this area. Robert’s passion is to support business growth and development through providing financial information for business decision-making. His involvement with Afri-CAN Cafe is exciting to him – not only for growth of the business and the concept, but for the opportunities it provides the cafe staff to grow in skills, training and to find employment.

Ashley Lopez BA, MA, MSc, studied in her native Chicago and latterly in London. She is a Partner in and currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Department of Coffee & Social Affairs, a fast growing independent coffee company based in Central London.  Ashley is a Founding Member of the Central London Rough Sleepers Committee (‘CLRSC’). The CLRSC provides meals and services to the homeless and rough sleepers in Central London and has served on 9,500 meals since it’s inception.

She is also the Chairman of The Goldfinger Factory, a London based social enterprise that is an up-cycling production and learning hub for the training, support and inspiration of London’s most disadvantaged residents to create desirable furnishings and fits-outs for London’s trendsetters with a social conscience. Ashley holds a BA in Law from Winona State University, an MSc in Law & Finance from Queen Mary University, London and a MA with Merit in Management from the University of Westminster, London.

Matthew Gill has been part an executive director of a number of organizations, both public and private over the last 15 years in the US and United Kingdom. He has worked principally in corporate start ups and turnarounds as CEO in a variety of sectors, including property, technology, food retail and financial services.

He is also a Co-Founder and Director of Department of Coffee and Social Affairs Ltd. and is responsible for the roll out and management of a growing number of artisan coffee-shops in Central London, selling in excess of 1 million cups of coffee per year.

Matthew is a founder member of The Central London Rough Sleepers Committee, providing free meals and support for the homeless in Central London. Since inception in 2008 it has served over 7,500 meals. He also serves as a Director of Pump Aid, an award winning UK charity that has provided clean water to over 1.2 million people in the poorest communities in rural Malawi and Zimbabwe.

Charles Kay is a UK based entrepreneur and consultant. He has operated in Sales, Business Development and Customer Retention in both the public and private sectors. Charles is the co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of iSculpt, an innovative medical technology company and under 52VBL Ltd holds a number of patents in defence medical technologies.

He spent the first half of his career in the Interactive Entertainment industry with companies such as Sega, Virgin, GT Interactive and Codemasters. With the advent of online, he specialised in developing methods of monetising content for gaming, music and film publishers with Exent Technologies and The Royal Bank Of Scotland. Since 2009, Charles has also undertaken various projects on behalf of the private office of Stefan Allesch-Taylor CBE, a London based Financier and Entrepreneur. These projects have involved roles within a London based Investment Bank, as Commercial Director for a UK based financial services PLC and Communications Director of the award winning UK charity Pump Aid. Charles also co-presents Stefan’s Social Experience Radio Show on London’s Soho Radio interviewing social entrepreneurs based in the UK.

Poppy graduated from the University of Loughborough with a BSc in Information Technology Management for Business. Since then, she has been appointed Director of Communications for the Afri-CAN Charity in February 2015, where she overseas the Afri-CAN Charity social media activity and communications.  Poppy has visited Cape Town to conduct training at the Afri-CAN Cafe’s on behalf of Department of Coffee and Social Affairs and intends to make further future trips. She is also the Human Resources Manager and Sales Executive for the Department of Coffee and Social Affairs, which responsibilities include, overseeing the Human Resources department, online retail operations and customer relations, as well as day-to-day management of the website content.  Her further charitable endeavours include volunteering for the Central London Rough Sleepers Committee (CLRSC) meals where she regularly works with the homeless and vulnerable in Central London.

Capetonian born Jody developed a passion for the culinary arts at a young age with his grandmother in their family kitchen. He graduated from the renowned Silwood Kitchen School of Cooking and became the head lecturer at South Africa’s largest privately owned Chef and Hospitality Management Schools – Capsicum.

His successful career has seen him working within various well-known restaurants and wine farms, including Constantia Uitsig, Mount Nelson and Savoy Cabbage. He was also a regular guest on popular South African cooking TV shows “What’s Your Flava” and “Spekko Home Cooking”.

He has a passion for food styling and has worked with renowned Food Stylist Abigail Donnelly.