Gerald grew up in a small rural town in South Africa and graduated from the University of Cape Town with an undergraduate degree – followed by a postgraduate degree – in Accounting. He is a Chartered Accountant. Gerald joined the Gerber Goldschmidt Group in 1982 in the Cape Town branch of their trade finance subsidiary. After a couple of years, he relocated to Johannesburg and was appointed CEO of Gerber Goldschmidt Finance. He was also appointed as a director to the main board of Gerber Goldschmidt Group, and is still on that board today. In 1993, the South African trade finance business was sold to Investec Bank, and in February 1994, Gerald relocated to New York, where he worked in a consulting capacity to one of the shareholders of J. Gerber & Co, a New York trading business. He was appointed CEO and then, in December 1994, he formed Gerber Finance. And the rest is history. Gerald sits on a number of boards as a non-executive director and is Chairman of the Board of Gerber Finance.