Anco founded Acorn Education in 2016 and the organisation joined the Public School Partnership/ Collaboration Schools Programme later that year.
Acorn Education is the School Operating Partner to three no-fee public schools in the Western Cape: Apex Primary School, Apex High School and Forest Village Leadership Academy. The organisation serve nearly 3,000 learners across the schools which are all located in Eerste River, near Cape Town.
Prior to her career in Education, Anco was a management consultant with both private sector and public sector clients. It was while conducting an in depth efficacy study on an alternative school model for an international NPO that Anco became passionate about driving sustainable change in the education sector.
Previously Anco was a Senior Manager at Ernst & Young Advisory Services in Cape Town where she managed various performance improvement projects for predominantly national and provincial public sector clients across a variety of services including turnaround strategy, change management, supply chain optimisation, business process optimisation, due diligence, feasibility studies and project management. Prior to her time at Ernst & Young, Anco spent nearly a decade abroad in senior positions within the management and strategy consulting sector, managing projects in the UK (Deloitte, London), Central and Eastern Europe (Cushman & Wakefield, Prague) and the Middle East (Asset management firm in Dubai).
Anco obtained a B.Soc Sc (Hons) Psychology from the University of Free State in 1999 and M.Phil in Social Sciences Research Methodology and Project Management from the University of Stellenbosch in 2005.