Cherrylee Samson is a South African born businesswoman, socialite and chief marketing executive.
She co-founded Hibarri alongside partner Anje Kruger, and has a track record of serial business development, commodity trading and successful marketing campaigns on both a commercial and political scale.
Ms Samson is a venture capitalist and invests in early growth-stage startup ventures.
Cherrylee Samson’s History and Travels
Ms Samson was born on the 20th of October 1990 and grew up in an Anglo-Afrikaans home in South Africa. Her father owns a series of audiological practices cross-country and her mother is a real estate investor. Cherrylee attended an All Girls High School and attended a private German Boarding School in her final high school years.
Ms Samson is of half Indian, and half Caucasian descent, and reports having experienced difficulties during post-apartheid South Africa. She had originally studied audiology in an effort to take over her father’s practice, but lost interest in the topic and had bigger dreams to travel.
At the age of 19, she had left South Africa to join the IPL cricket league in India as a marketing executive, and climbed the ranks to become one of the senior marketing officials in the organization.
She had stayed in India for about six years and became friends with a large portion of the industrial families and politicians in the country, taking on various ad-hoc marketing roles predominantly in the political space. With the firm belief that anything is possible, Ms Samson combined her business acumen with the development of her personal brand as a cover-girl and international model.
Cherrylee Samson’s Academic and Commercial Developments in Finance & commodities
Ms Samson returned to South Africa and spent her deeper twenties in the modeling world while obtaining a Finance and Insurance License in the country. As a result of this, she had acquired a franchise model of Collectors World and started her own secured loans business.
The action of trading of gold, platinum, diamonds and high value commodities through Collectors World was her entry into the universe of commodities.
Via her network, Ms Samson had met Anje Kruger as a respected diesel supplier in the country, and shortly after decided to acquire a stake in the business, leaving gold for what the country regards as liquid gold.
Cherrylee Samson’s co-Creation of Hibarri
This consolidation of capital and expertise led to the expansion of their commodity trading division, a major marketing shift in the business, and ultimately the creation of Hibarri after Samson came up with the idea to create an “Uber for Commodities”.
Hibarri currently stands as one of South Africa’s most innovative companies, where Ms Samson heads up the marketing division as Chief Marketing Officer. Hibarri also hosts the International Commodity Summit 2025 as endorsed by Brand South Africa and sponsored by some of the most respected mining, energy, logistics and banking institutions in the country.
Her visionary leadership of the Hibarri marketing division is predominantly focused on heavily investing in industry events in the commodity sector and sub-industries. Her strategy is simple: reach every commodity producer in the world, at any cost, and as fast as possible. While Cherrylee Samson has invested in conferences, she also believes in investing in people and developing institutional knowledge with strong bonus incentives. She enjoys mentoring younger leaders and is respected for her benevolence.
Ms Samson is a respected keynote speaker who’s message is clear: the commodity industry is the world’s next biggest sector, women deserve equal chances in it, and the world will become a better place as a result of technology.
Her leadership continues to maintain an innovative spirit throughout the organization, and with the recent tectonic scale developments in the commodity world having taken place over a short span of time, this serves to be only the beginning.
