Renee is a chartered accountant, entrepreneur and business owner of Teqal (Pty) Ltd, OVS Solutions (Pty) Ltd, RSA Capital & Advisory (Pty) Ltd, and One Vision Risk (Pty) Ltd.

Renee started her first business at 23 years old in 1994 and sold it to JSE listed Group namely Astrapak limited, in 2006. She won South African Business Woman of the Year in 2004 and continues to shatter glass ceilings in her field.

Trudie has been a practising attorney since 1999 and she has a mixed litigation and non-contentious practice. She believes strongly that legal practitioners have a duty to give back to  society and the communities in which they practice,  as officers of the court and as individuals who are held in high esteem by members of the public and who should at all times uphold and help enforce the rights enshrined in our Bill of Rights.

This belief has informed most of her life decisions, starting with the delay of her articles of clerkship so that she could work for the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies  as a street law co-ordinator. Once she started practising independently in 2004, she has always ensured that she has acted for NGOs and voluntary associations in relation to public law, strategic impact and class action constitutional litigation to assist in representing the most vulnerable individuals in our society. 

She has worked on matters relating to socio-economic rights such as housing, the environment, health, education and women’s rights under customary unions. Some recent examples include; acting on the instructions of the Wildlands Conservation Trust, representing the Friends of Tsitsikamma, a voluntary association comprising scientists, academics and marine conservationists to interdict and review a decision by the relevant authorities to permit recreational angling in the Tsitsikamma Marine Protected Area. Acting on the instructions of Section 27 and the Treatment Action Campaign to obtain an urgent interdict to allow a peaceful march to proceed as planned. Most notably, representing SERI and Abahlahli Basemjondolo Movement SA since 2009 in a vast number of urgent applications and interdicts relating to the rights of individuals and families who reside in informal settlements to protection from unlawful evictions, arbitrary destruction of personal property, personal injury and to dignity and respect.

Trudie has the following qualifications. A Bachelor of Arts degree; an LLB degree; an Intermediate Certificate in Business Studies and Certificate of Proficiency through the The Insurance Institute of South Africa; A Certificate on Introductory Course on Non-Tariff Measures and COVID-19, through UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development); and Certificates in Negotiation and Leadership and The Art of Saying No (One day Seminar) through Harvard Law School. 

Trudie is an Acting Judge of the High Court of Gauteng, Johannesburg Division and 2022 Mentor for  Advancing Women in the Workforce Project (AWW), a project initiated by the Cyrus R Vance Centre for International Justice for women lawyers in South Africa. She is a member of the Inaugural Friends of CAOSA Advisory Council, which was established at the beginning of 2022.  Instrumental to CAOSAs vision is access to justice, social services and legal support for marginalized and vulnerable communities and individuals. Trudie is also an elected member of the first South African Legal Practice Council and its Exco, the national regulatory body for all legal practitioners in South Africa.