In December 2013 a close family member of Jan’s suffered a stroke and did not receive appropriate treatment. The experience of the months and years that followed and the knowledge that the outcome could have been very different had the patient received the appropriate therapy, motivated him to find a way to improve acute stroke care in his home country South Africa – the idea for the Angels Initiative was born. After his transfer to the German head office in Ingelheim, Jan and Thomas Fischer (who shared his goal of improving stroke care) formally started the Angels Initiative as it is known today. Jan started his formal education after school with a Bachelor Degree in Human Movement Sciences. After that he also completed a Bachelor Degree in Business Administration with Marketing as specialization and later a MBA with the Henley Business School. Jan has almost 20 years of Pharmaceutical experience in various positions in South Africa and in Germany. As the project lead for the Angels Initiative he is dedicated to do whatever it takes to change the face of acute stroke treatment in the world so that others don’t have to suffer the same preventable fate as his family member.