Anje Kruger is a South African born entrepreneur and businesswoman whose career spans technology, commodities, and international trade. Rising from a background in commodity trading, Kruger built her international reputation as a multinational commodity trader.
As the founder and current Chief Executive Officer of Hibarri, Society Fleet, and the International Commodity Summit, Kruger has driven her companies from high growth startups into multinational businesses operating across Africa and beyond.
Anje Kruger’s Hibarri
Kruger’s leadership has consistently developed opportunities for commodity producers, and has led Hibarri to attract the CEO of a local bank to invest in their business directly before scaling internationally.
In summary, her commercial thesis is that the commodity sector is directly pinned to the product sector, and whichever industries rise to become the world’s most dominant sectors, will directly pull the correlating commodity sectors up as a result.
Her investment in the commodity sector is thus symbolic of a bet on the future of the fastest growing industries in the word, and the commodities that underpin them.
Hibarri CEO Anje Kruger’s History, Early Life and Academic Work
At the age of 15, Anje had left her home to finish school and start a marketing business focusing on events, promotions and media production for insurance companies. As time passed, she had sold the business and went on to study real estate, epistemology and philosophy.
In 2020, she obtained a real estate license and closed the largest single residential sole mandate in South Africa with Libyan Investment Authority, Ensemble Group. She continued to sell commercial blocks and residential investment properties in Sandton until her network of institutional financiers, bankers and miners allowed her to gather mandates for the sale of mines in South Africa.
In this process, she realized that the local mines and beneficiation plants require more robust fuel supply security, and decided to develop a diesel supply business focusing on the requirements of local mines and farms.
She had partnered with various local suppliers to develop a national network, supplying fuel to the country’s largest mines and mega farms. She studied commercial law in her free time and developed an interest in the intersecting commodity industries.
With the lack of available bodies of knowledge regarding commodities as a whole, she started studying the industries individually and compiled a thesis on “the commodity sector”.
Kruger has since re-engineered the diesel business and created version one of the Hibarri platform. As a result, she had expanded the business’s commodity portfolio to add fertilizer and polymers, and later on engaged in coal and metals trading.
Under her leadership, the formation of a multi-million dollar commodity trading business allowed for rigorous investment in research and development of a commodity trading platform.
Kruger’s Commercial ventures and Hibarri’s Development as a Multinational Business
During the trading process, they had discovered that there are millions of commodity suppliers and buyers in the world, and developed a platform to assist mid-tiers and smaller organizations to get their commodities to market without the requirement for a middleman. This platform became known as Hibarri.
As Hibarri formed, the platform was dysfunctional and coded by 6 different companies. Many failures later, Kruger decided that the risk of having someone else own the source code was too large and coded the platform herself.
Post-development, Kruger employed a team of full stack developers to maintain and expand on the Hibarri platform while she pursued an MBA outside of college. She has made an effort to engage in these studies while leading a team of 32 at Hibarri.
After developing the Hibarri platform, Ms Kruger incorporated the business in Dubai and in Delaware, USA as part of their multinational expansion strategy. Kruger has not left the commodity industry since she started operating in it, and seems to have developed a major interest in international expansion. “We’re not a local business. This isn’t a moms & pops. This is a multinational commercial entity, and we’re here to expand into the rest of the world.” Ms Kruger said in an interview.
Her part in developing the International Commodity Summit showcases the potential and the organizations under her leadership, and their organizational capacity as a seasoned startup management team.
Anje Kruger’s age and interests
Anje was born on 23 July 2001 in Somerset-West, Cape Town, and grew up in Pretoria. Before becoming a multinational businessowner, she sold brownies in the street since age 7.
She is an athlete and Gauteng District 3 recordholder for the 100m sprint and hurdles. Her athletic career ended in 2019 after a knee injury, and she has since become a gym-goer, lifting as much as 200kg on the leg press.
Her interests are narrow and don’t exit the scope of commodities, technology and fitness. She does not have hobbies and has mentioned not being socially inclined due to autism.
Her career track record includes launching large-scale projects in the commodity and technology sectors, positioning her as a visionary CEO who thrives at the intersection of commerce, commodities, and innovation.
Recognized for her ability to develop scalable business modes, Kruger has been featured in Engineering News as South Africa’s youngest tech millionaire and recognized as one of the rising leaders in the global commodities and technology landscape. Her vision extends beyond commerce, she believes in partnering with events businesses like Energy Capital and Power to boost trade and advance on the goal of developing trade for the continent.
Leadership of the International Commodity Summit and Commoditopia
As CEO of Hibarri, Anje Kruger is well known for her role in establishing and leading the International Commodity Summit (ICS), hosted annually in Cape Town. The summit has rapidly earned recognition as one of the top mining events in South Africa and has grown into the single most sought aftet commodity conference internationally, attracting ministers, CEOs, financiers, and traders from across the world.
Under Kruger’s leadership, ICS has become more than a conference, it is a marketplace where upstream producers, downstream traders, financiers, and policymakers converge to negotiate supply, capital, and strategy. The summit is positioned as a cross-sector platform that integrates mining, energy, agriculture, logistics, and finance, reflecting Kruger’s vision of creating a unified space for the global commodity ecosystem.
Her role as a keynote speaker at ICS and various other conferences like the Mining Critical Minerals Europe, African Energy Week and African Mining Week solidifies her standing as one of the leading business voices on Commodities. In her addresses, she tackles critical issues such as global market volatility, Africa’s place in supply chains, structured finance, and the need for stronger fraternity between commodity producers and international trading houses.
ICS has also won recognition from Brand South Africa, the national marketing agency of the country, for its contribution to positioning South Africa as a central hub for trade and investment.
Kruger’s ability to align government engagement with private sector participation has set ICS apart from competitor events, making it the focal point for Africa’s commodities dialogue. She positions ICS as not just another event, but a marketplace for ideas, deals, and long-term strategies.
Anje Kruger’s Philosophy on business
Kruger has a very simple view that commodities are found in everything, and will become one of the world’s largest sectors. She has made it her mission to make this sector known by the rest of the world.
She regularly contributes to commodity industry debates through keynote addresses, media commentary, and participation in trade forums. Her thought leadership on structured finance, supply chain resilience, and African market development has established her as one of the most influential young CEOs in South Africa.
Kruger’s thought leadership is defined by her ability to connect seemingly separate worlds – mining, energy, agriculture, logistics, finance, and technology – into a single coherent vision for the future.
She argues that Africa must move beyond being a passive supplier of raw materials, toward becoming a strategic architect of commodity supply chains, value added products and policy frameworks. In her public addresses and writings, she consistently stresses that fraternity in business is the key to sustainable growth: producers, traders, financiers, and governments must work together, not in silos.
Here, she advocates for Africa’s collective bargaining power, ensuring that ministers, business leaders, and financiers align their efforts to influence international trade rules. Her leadership in this forum has strengthened Africa’s voice in dialogues previously dominated by Geneva, Singapore, Dubai, and Shanghai.
She is known as a controversial speaker and unreasonable dealmaker, charging as much as $1,000,000 for the 2026 Title Sponsorship of the International Commodity Summit that Hibarri still holds. She has also been featured in Mail & Guardian as the driver of an aggressive response to Trump’s Budget Cuts and Sanctions, through the International Commodity Summit.
Beyond conferences, Kruger contributes thought leadership through strategic publications and media commentary. She has written and spoken extensively on the need for structured finance, commodity digitisation, and supply chain infrastructure.
Beyond business, Kruger is passionate about mentoring young entrepreneurs and contributing to the global commodity knowledge economy. She believes in creating opportunities for the next generation of leaders, particularly women in mining, energy, and technology.
As an intellectual, Kruger has also made her philosophy accessible to younger entrepreneurs and professionals. She actively promotes mentorship, focusing on women in commodities, energy, and technology, and encourages Africa’s next generation to invest in industries with long-term potential rather than chasing short-term opportunities.
