San-Marie Barnard

Partner and Head of Research

BA (Hons); Dip Business Management

San-Marie Barnard is Partner at Jack Hammer Global, based in the firm’s Cape Town head office. She has 14 years at Jack Hammer and 16 years in executive search overall, having built her early African exposure at Earthstream Global before joining the firm.

San-Marie leads Jack Hammer’s research teams on multi-country search projects and works in a hybrid role spanning both client partnering and candidate engagement – placing NEDs, C-suite, executive-level, and senior specialist candidates. Her sector expertise spans privately owned family businesses, agriculture, NPOs, insurance and reinsurance, platform-based businesses, and FMCG and manufacturing, with search experience across South Africa, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique, Angola, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, and Ivory Coast, plus the USA, and more broadly Sub-Saharan Africa and MENA.

She’s known for a direct approach – asking the hard questions and cutting straight to the chase – and clients and candidates alike describe her as knowledgeable, dedicated, and tenacious. An avid traveler, she’s built professional networks across the globe, with just as much wanderlust to match.