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The Outsized team

Built by ex-consultants, financial services leaders, and investors, our team brings first-hand experience from top consulting firms, financial institutions, and FS-focused private equity. We’ve sat on both sides of the table – hiring and delivering – which is why clients and independents alike trust Outsized to get it right.

Leadership

Johann van Niekerk
South Africa
Co-founder COO
Johann is the Co-founder & COO of Outsized, responsible also for the day-to-day operations of the South African entity. Johann is a qualified actuary and worked as a product development specialist … at Metropolitan Life. He later headed the Business Development function at reinsurer RGA, later Marketing as well as being the General Manager at RGA Ventures – the corporate venturing arm. Before joining Outsized, Johann was the General Manager of RGAx, RGA’s innovation accelerator.
Image of Niclas Thelander, Co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer at Outsized
Niclas Thelander
Global
Founder
Niclas is the Founder & Chief Marketing Officer at Outsized, leading our Talent, Community and Marketing teams. He started his career in banking with leading Nordic bank SEB, then worked as … a strategy consulting manager at KPMG. He later held in-house strategy and corporate development leadership roles in banking and insurance. Before founding Outsized, he was Director of Value Creation at emerging markets private equity fund LeapFrog Investments, driving growth, impact, and efficiency projects in portfolio companies across Asia and Africa. Niclas is also the Chairman of the Board at Outsized.
Anurag Bhalla
Southeast Asia
Co-founder CEO
Anurag is the Co-founder & CEO at Outsized. Prior to cofounding Outsized he worked at Market Gravity (now Deloitte Digital) with a focus on innovation, proposition design. He also worked at … Monitor Deloitte, leading projects related to venture building and proposition design. In his earlier career Anurag was Director of Innovation, Emerging Markets, at global insurer Legal & General, leading the development and go-to-market strategies of innovative propositions across Asian and African markets. At Outsized he first built the India business, before moving to Singapore to lead the APAC region.
Azeem Zainulbhai
Global
Co-founder CPO
Azeem is the Co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Outsized. He has deep experience in building marketplaces and platforms in areas such as talent, B2B ecommerce, real-estate, and restaurant bookings. Previous … companies worked for include Housing.com, ShopX, and Restaurant Week. Azeem started his career in investment banking (Bank of America, Merrill Lynch), and Private Equity (New Silk Route). At Outsized he leads our global Product & Engineering teams.
Martin Bouroncle
Australia
Director
Martin is the Managing Director for ANZ at Outsized. He has a background across banking and insurance, having held strategy, operations, risk and governance roles at Macquarie, Commonwealth Bank, IAG and … Allianz, where he specialised in enterprise strategy, operating model design, and complex regulatory and governance mandates. He moved into the independent talent sector as Outsized’s first hire in Australia, joining as Commercial Director to lead the market entry. There, he built the ANZ business from a cold start with no brand and no clients into Outsized’s fastest growing global market. He now leads Outsized’s fastest growing market into its next phase of growth across Australia and New Zealand.