Saskia started at ESI in January 2019 as a professional assistant. Her duties include desktop IT, statistics and managing the marketing department.
Saskia’s parents emigrated from Holland in the 1950s and settled in Durbanville, South Africa, where she was the last born of four children and the only daughter. Although her brothers are no longer living in Durbanville, Saskia still has a very close relationship with them and sees them as often as opportunity allows.
Saskia started her first job at 13, working on Saturday mornings at the local shopping centre, typing invoices and letters and doing general admin. During her high school and college years, she waitressed at the Spur restaurant franchise for her spending money and after college she started working for conveyancing attorneys in the city as a secretary. Despite a few years of interruption due to becoming the proud parent of three gorgeous daughters, Saskia spent the next 18 years as a conveyancing paralegal for various attorney firms in the Western Cape.
In 2006, she joined Korbitec (now Lexis Nexis) to work as a support and training consultant for GhostConvey, where she developed her technical and training skills. For 9 years, she was responsible for ensuring that conveyancing attorney firms in the Western Cape were optimally using the software, sufficiently recouping their expenses and troubleshooting any technical issues.
After 9 years, she was tired of being on the road all day and returned to the employment of conveyancing attorneys, honing her skills on one firm instead of many.
Saskia has three grown up daughters with whom she has a very close family bond. Hannah, who lives at Horizon House in Stellenbosch, Aiden who recently got married and Robyn who is still studying. Although none of her daughters live at home anymore, they see each other as often as they can.
A regular day at ESI for Saskia incorporates daily and monthly stats for the directors on work received, matters registered, work in progress, fee forecasts and market share comparison. She attends to the staff’s technical requirements to ensure that their work is uninterrupted and that process is followed and maintains the software, websites and ESI app. Saskia manages the promotional marketing materials, social media accounts and designs the presentations, invitations and newsletters.
Saskia is an avid humanitarian and equal rights advocate and is passionate about social development in South Africa. She believes in positivity, integrity, honesty and compassion and tries to assist and uplift where she can. She describes herself as a problem solver and her favourite quote is by Henry Thoreau: “There is no value in life except what you place upon it and no happiness in any place, except what you bring to it yourself.”
Now that her children are grown, Saskia enjoys travel and new experiences. She loves the outdoors and hiking and paddling are her favourite activities. Saskia enjoys watching live music, especially the blues, but reading a book under a tree gives her just as much pleasure.