“Behind every name we call this evening is a story the rest of us did not see.”
With those words, Moonstone’s chief executive, Hjalmar Bekker, opened Moonstone Business School of Excellence’s first in-person graduation ceremony in Stellenbosch on 26 June 2026.
“Early mornings before work, assignments finished after children were finally asleep… moments when it could have been easier to stop. You did not stop. That perseverance is not a footnote to your qualification. It is the qualification.”
The ceremony celebrated those individual journeys. It also marked an important milestone for an institution whose own journey has unfolded over almost two decades.
From compliance to higher education
MBSE celebrated its tenth anniversary last year, but Bekker says its roots lie in Moonstone’s compliance business almost 20 years ago.
“Part of compliance is education – to educate people to be compliant,” he said, explaining how Moonstone’s investment in education grew naturally from its work with the financial services industry.
That journey took a significant step forward in 2015 when Moonstone acquired PSG Academy and established MBSE as an online higher education institution serving the financial services industry.
Building the institution required patience.
“When you start a business, it’s all about planning, and time,” Bekker said. “You have to give yourself enough time to ensure that you actually build a reputation and get to the point where people start believing in you.”
Today, MBSE offers qualifications ranging from higher certificates to postgraduate studies and, most recently, introduced its online Bachelor of Commerce in Financial Management.
For Bekker, however, education has always been about creating opportunities.
“I’ve always been very pro-training,” he said. “Without learning, you curb yourself and your ability to be yourself.”
Recalling the advice he once shared during a presentation, he added: “If you stop learning, you start dying.”
Built around working professionals
The graduates also reflected the professionals MBSE was created to serve.
Many of the graduates had returned to formal study after years in the workplace, balancing their studies alongside careers, businesses, and family responsibilities.
Among them was financial educator and entrepreneur Nicolette Mashile, founder of Financial Fitness Bunnies, who graduated with a Postgraduate Diploma in Financial Planning.
Mashile said she wanted a formal qualification that would deepen her technical knowledge while strengthening the work her company does in financial education.
“South Africa doesn’t have a formal qualification for financial education, but because we work in a very legislated space, it was a huge requirement for me and my team that I get qualified in financial planning,” she said.
Completing the qualification meant fitting study around an already demanding schedule.
“I wrote these exams while shooting a television show. I would be on set with my books open,” she said.
Mashile said the support she received made a difference.
“Knowing that you’re not just a number on the other side of the screen, and the people on the other side are able to respond to you as quickly as possible, eases your anxiety. That really helps.”
Growing alongside its students
Academic manager Edel Goldbach has seen that philosophy take shape from the beginning.
She joined MBSE in 2016, when the academic team consisted of only a handful of people sharing a single office.
“Myself and Julette Wentzel (senior lecturer) started at a very, very small MBSE, sharing one small office in August 2016. Since then, we’ve grown into what is now a very special business school where we celebrate excellence and where we celebrate being close to our students,” she said.
Goldbach believes that staying close to students also means being willing to learn from them. She explains that many students are experienced professionals working across the financial services industry, bringing current workplace knowledge into the virtual classroom. Rather than assuming the institution has all the answers, she says student feedback helps lecturers refine course material and respond to changes in legislation and industry practice.
“We don’t come with the attitude that we know everything, and you know nothing,” she said. “We allow our students to be our critics. If there’s something that needs to change, then we adapt, we change, we improve.”
That philosophy also shapes how lecturers work with students individually.
“When I answer an email, I try to put myself in that student’s shoes and give them an answer that they can work with,” she said.
Seeing students walk across the stage and celebrate with the people who had supported them along the way was an emotional moment for Goldbach.
“I was overwhelmed with pride this evening,” Goldbach said. “What really pulled my heartstrings was to see how attentive and how proud the students and their families and friends were. That was really a very special moment for me.”
During his address, Bekker reminded graduates that while many students had completed MBSE qualifications before them, they would always occupy a unique place in the institution’s history.
“You may not be MBSE’s first graduates, but you are the first to walk the stage,” he said.
“Every graduation that MBSE will ever hold, for as long as this institution exists, will be able to trace its lineage back to this ceremony, to this evening, to you.”
For years, MBSE students knew their lecturers through computer screens, emails, and online classrooms.
On Friday evening, they finally met across a graduation stage.
Visit www.mbse.ac.za for more information or contact MBSE at help@mbse.ac.za.
