Petrus Marais

Petrus Marais is Senior Managing Director leading FTI Consulting in South Africa and the Head of Forensic and Litigation Consulting in South Africa, responsible for leading FTI Consulting specialist advisory teams in Johannesburg and Cape Town. An Advocate of the High Court of South Africa and the former Global Leader of KPMG Forensic, Adv. Marais has over 30 years' experience in advising clients in the prevention, investigation and criminal and civil prosecution of fraud, corruption, bribery and regulatory non-compliance.

Prior to joining FTI Consulting, Adv. Marais was the Global Leader of KPMG Forensic for over 5 years and before that the regional leader of KPMG Forensic in Europe, Middle East & Africa. He established the KPMG Forensic practice in South Africa and Africa and grew it over a period of twenty years.

Prior to joining KPMG, Adv. Marais was a founder member of The Office for Serious Economic Offences in the Department of Justice in South Africa. In this capacity he led a number of large, successful cross-border investigations and High Court prosecutions involving stock exchange trading schemes, foreign exchange frauds and manipulations, pyramid investment schemes, financial instrument forgery syndicates, and public sector bribery and corruption cases. His experience extends across the financial sector, international sport, the tobacco industry, healthcare, public sector procurement, and many more industries.

Adv. Marais has also been actively involved in establishing, growing and/or leading forensic practices in numerous jurisdictions as well as advising on setting up in-house forensic teams at a number of multi-national corporates. His areas of forensic expertise include investigations, litigation support, technology driven fraud detection, and regulatory enforcement and compliance.

Adv. Marais graduated with degrees in law from The University of Cape Town and was admitted to the bar in South Africa in 1983.

Adv. Marais received the ACQ5 Award: International – Petrus Marais : Forensic Gamechanger of the Year.