About
Us
React. Prepare. Prevent
Salient Discovery
At Salient, we never stand still. Whether it’s learning new skills, looking for better ways of working, or exploring the latest technology – you’ll benefit from our curiosity and creativity.
Our world-class experts are friendly and passionate, and our experience shines through in every engagement. An uncompromising approach to quality comes hand-in-hand with cost-effective delivery from our team in South Africa – a right-shored model that offers our clients the best of both worlds.
Our goal is to build connections that last, working in partnership with our clients to deliver sharp insights, an agile response to every challenge, and a proactive approach that sustainably drives down.
Our expertise
We like to think of ourselves as datasmiths, using today’s leading eDiscovery tools and technology with precision, creativity and finesse to transform and combine structured and unstructured data in a forensically sound manner.
Our team boasts a diverse skill set that enables us to confidently tackle even the largest eDiscovery projects. No matter what data cleansing and/or transformation requirements may arise, we have what it takes to get to the heart of every matter.
Our team includes:
- Engineering graduates
- Forensic accountants
- Certified Information Systems Auditors (CISA)
- ICFP-certified Digital Forensic specialists, including Encase, Cellebrite and MOBILedit
- ACEDS-certified eDiscovery and Brainspace specialists
- Data Science and AI Specialists
- Certified Qlikview and Power BI analysts
- Microsoft Certified Technology Specialists (MSTS) in Microsoft 365, Microsoft SQL and associated technologies
Our leadership team
Meet the leadership team behind Salient’s reputation for excellence.
David Fisk
Managing Director, United Kingdom
David has many years of Global experience in positioning Legal, eDiscovery, AI, content management and knowledge solutions in the legal, financial and corporate sectors. He is passionate about the opportunities inherent in the convergence of eDiscovery with the broader Data Governance discipline. He is responsible for all of Salient’s project management, commercial and financial aspects.
Adam Bown
Managing Director, South Africa
Adam is the leader of the Salient Discovery team. He is a Certified eDiscovery Specialist and member of the Institute of Forensic Practitioners (ICFP).
Adam is an accomplished Forensic Technology professional with 13 years’ experience in the realm of Forensic Data Analytics, eDiscovery, IT Forensic and Investigations. Adam’s forensic experience is preceded by 15 years’ experience as an IT professional in which he was involved in many aspects of IT strategy and implementation.
Stephanus Nambili
Director, Namibia
Stephanus Nambili CFE, ACSI is a legal forensic practitioner with in-depth experience in forensic investigations, fraud audits, internal control vulnerability assessments, internal control design, fraud risk management, litigation, litigation support, legal due diligences, commercial law and risk advisory. Stephanus has participated in some of the biggest forensic investigations in Namibia and he possesses over 18 years postgraduate experience.
Nivasha Sanilal
Legal and Compliance Specialist
Nivasha is a legal and compliance professional with a record of accomplishment in the financial services industry. She is a member of the Compliance Institute South Africa (CISA) and is a certified Compliance Practitioner.
Nivasha has practical experience of end-to-end compliance risk management, regulatory change management, compliance monitoring and reporting. She can engage with business and technical teams to discuss risk management, bridge the gap that can exist between teams, build understanding, and drive informed decision-making.
Rynhardt Haarhoff
Senior Analytics Specialist
Rynhardt is a certified data analyst with experience in Business Intelligence, Audit Support, Regulatory Reporting (Know-Your-Client) and Forensic Analytics. Rynhardt’s analytic skills are applied to any structured or transactional data component in the eDiscovery project. He can expose the metadata and supplementary structured data within the eDiscovery case and provide insight through additional queries and reports.
Our successes
We’re not usually ones to blow our own trumpets. We go the extra mile for our clients and we know they appreciate our efforts and our expertise because when the next matter arrives, we’re first on their supplier list for eDiscovery.
If we were to celebrate a few of our most notable successes, here are a few that we’re particularly proud of.
Rapid processing of >25 million documents
We processed and hosted >25 million documents (6TB) in our eDiscovery platform in support of an ongoing State Capture investigation.
Search enrichment with custom metadata
We overlayed custom metadata from financial and document management systems on documents in our eDiscovery platform to enrich the searching and batching of documents in review.
Innovative use of cognitive analytics
We used Cognitive Analytics and Natural Language Processing (NLP) in early case assessment to identify other persons of interest and hidden relationships in semi-structured and unstructured data.
Deployed AI technologies on photos
We implemented visual AI technologies to OCR handwritten documents and label objects (e.g. people, places, things) in photographs and images.
Handled mobile device data for Cellebrite
We pre-processed mobile device data for Cellebrite for ingestion into multiple eDiscovery review platforms.
Forensic email extraction
We completed the forensic extraction of email from multiple email archive sources using native processes or third-party tools.
Extracted 4TB of MS Exchange journal data
We completed forensic extraction of 4TB of MS Exchange journal data for processing into our hosted eDiscovery platform.
Enhanced visual reporting
We extended visual reporting using Power BI models to give case managers greater insight into reviewer activity and document review rates across multiple review pools.
Our technology
Technology, including AI and machine learning, has revolutionised eDiscovery by efficiently managing vast amounts of electronically stored information. We’ve done our homework to find the tools that are industry-leading and constantly innovating so we can deliver faster, more accurate results for our clients.
Our cutting-edge technology combined with our expert team makes an unbeatable combination. All tools have strengths and weaknesses in specific contexts and our team can maximise their potential by using their knowledge of industries, regulations, investigation processes and litigation to select and implement the most suitable tool and analytical technique at the right point in the eDiscovery process.
Reveal allows us to provide:
All of Salient’s eDiscovery services are currently powered by the industry-leading Reveal-Brainspace eDiscovery Platform, including cognitive analytics using Reveal AI.
This platform supports the full life cycle of a case, from processing through to analysis, review, production, and presentation in court. Hosted in Amazon data centres, it enables us to offer a truly secure, end-to-end, managed eDiscovery service.
We leverage the integration of their industry-leading Brainspace AI engine into our eDiscovery workflow to dramatically reduce the overall effort, time and cost in performing effective investigations and reviews. In addition to providing access to this capability, our service can also include the expertise in how best to leverage these technologies, a technique we call cognitive analytics.
- High platform availability by leveraging Amazon’s 99.982% commitment for uptime and availability
- The ability to scale the underlying infrastructure dynamically, to meet your case load requirements
- Secure, fast uploads of data into the hosted platform via a secure web interface
- The ability to host multiple cases on one platform, each with their own database so there is no risk of data contamination
- Access granted at the case level using two-factor authentication, with further granular role-based access within the case itself
MOBILedit Forensic
The MOBILedit suite of tools allows the full examination of mobile devices, to detect and extract content, such as the call history, contacts, text messages, chats, multimedia messages, photos, videos, audio recordings, calendar items, reminders, notes and data files. Additionally it detects deleted data, passwords, and data from apps including Skype, Dropbox, Facebook, WhatsApp and many others. This extends also to the phone’s native cloud-based storage facilities (for example, Apple iCloud).
In addition to the focus on the phone itself, MOBILedit also provides tools to examine the peripheral sources of data, such as other cloud-based repositories to which the user may subscribe, smartwatches (wearable devices) and digital cameras.
Passware Kit Forensic
Passware Kit Forensic is the all-in-one encrypted electronic evidence discovery solution that is able to decrypt all password-encrypted data. The software recognizes more than 300 file types and extensions and can be configured to queue multiple documents or data to decrypt.
Passware is the quickest decryption software available, because it applies all possible computational resources for optimum efficiency.
Passware Kit is able to use multiple CPUs, NVIDIA and AMD GPUs, in addition to linking multiple systems. GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) cards accelerate password recovery up to 400x vs CPU-only systems.
Security and compliance
With extensive experience in highly regulated industries, our team is more than just well-versed the latest security and compliance best practices. Every process and piece of technology we use is held to the same uncompromising standards.
To ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of our clients’ information, the Reveal Platform has also been architected and configured with security at its core.
These are just a few of the ways it actively protects your data.
Confidentiality
- All data is encrypted at rest and in motion
- Encryption is implemented with open source and industry-standard technologies
- We maintain separate regional environments to provide assurance of data locality
Confidentiality
- All data is encrypted at rest and in motion
- Encryption is implemented with open source and industry-standard technologies
- We maintain separate regional environments to provide assurance of data locality
Availability
- All client data is stored at Tier III+ data centres that guarantee 99.982% uptime
- All client data is replicated to multiple data centres within a region
- Our application service architecture has been designed to be resilient to outage of a single data centre
Availability
- All client data is stored at Tier III+ data centres that guarantee 99.982% uptime
- All client data is replicated to multiple data centres within a region
- Our application service architecture has been designed to be resilient to outage of a single data centre
Application Security
- Two-factor authentication can be required for all your users
- Robust audit logs detailing actions undertaken by each user account
- Role-based access control policies that manage which resources a user may access
Application Security
- Two-factor authentication can be required for all your users
- Robust audit logs detailing actions undertaken by each user account
- Role-based access control policies that manage which resources a user may access
Governance
- The data centres have implemented controls in alignment with ISO/IEC 27001 and SOC 2
- All servers are configured to only allow communication using those protocols and ports required for operating. All other traffic, including direct access to the Internet, is denied
- We maintain a robust information security awareness program for all staff members
- Routine third-party infrastructure and application testing
Governance
- The data centres have implemented controls in alignment with ISO/IEC 27001 and SOC 2
- All servers are configured to only allow communication using those protocols and ports required for operating. All other traffic, including direct access to the Internet, is denied
- We maintain a robust information security awareness program for all staff members
- Routine third-party infrastructure and application testing