OUR 2017 JUDGES

Dr Raymond Patel
CEO | merSETA

Raymond holds a Phd in Education Management, focusing on Performance Management. He has over 30 years of experience in Education and Training. He was a teacher, lecturer, education planner, teacher development, director of Education, MD of a company he founded. Previously the CEO of Chemical SETA (CHIETA) and since 2006 the CEO of merSETA.

He is:
Board member of:

  • Cell C Foundation;
  • The University of Western Cape;
  • Human Resources Development Committee of RSA (HRDC)

 

Gillian Saunders
Deputy CEO| Grant Thornton

Gillian Saunders is Deputy CEO of Johannesburg Audit Tax and Advisory Firm Grant Thornton, and Head of Advisory Services for South Africa. Gillian has a track record of more than 25 years in her area of specialization: consultation to the hospitality, tourism and leisure industries. In 2012, Gillian was appointed Global Sector Leader: Hotels and Tourism for Grant Thornton. She now leads a team of experts in various fields from over 25 countries. Gillian has consulted extensively on all aspects of these industries, to both the public and private sector throughout Africa.

Previously she also worked in the industry in Europe, with stints at Eurest in France (a subsidiary of Nestle and Wagons-Lits) and with Sheraton in Germany and Switzerland. Gillian joined the Southern Sun Group in South Africa in 1982. She is the author of a number of respected articles and a regular commentator in the media. She is Chairperson of the board of the University of Johannesburg’s Kerzner School of Tourism and Hospitality and is passionate about education and education in the Hospitality and Tourism sector.

 

 

Isabella Makuta
Group Corporate Affairs Director | Group Five

Isabella is the Group Corporate Affairs Director at Group Five, a leading JSE-listed African construction, concessions and manufacturing group. She has over 20 years’ working experience in government, transportation, engineering and construction sector organisations. Her wide range of qualifications includes an MBA (Bond University, Australia); a Post Graduate Diploma in Management in Human Resources (Wits Univ.); a BA degree (NUL); a Diploma in Marketing Communication (Vega Brand School); a Diploma in Labour Law (GMIT); two Global Executive Development programmes (attained from GIBS and Wharton-University of Pennsylvania, USA, respectively); a Strategic Public Affairs qualification (Pinnacle, London UK) and an Executive Programme (Harvard, USA).

She is a member of IODSA; on the board of Sky Sands (Pty) Ltd- a construction materials company; a member of the International Women’s Forum of South Africa (IWFSA) and Vice President of the South African Forum for Civil Engineering and Construction (SAFCEC).

She is the founding director and Chairperson of Group Five‘s award-winning Basadi programme – a fast track initiative aimed at increasing females in the company and in construction – and Director of University of Johannesburg’s Women in Engineering and the Built Environment programme (WiEBE). In 1999 she championed the launching of Transnet’s Women in Rail programme. She was also Chairperson of the Transnet Chairman’s Executive Women’s Programme. For a number of years, she was on the Management Committee of the Johannesburg Black Management Forum (BMF), as well as the Johannesburg Businesswomen Association (BWA).

Isabella was nominated for the Shoprite Checkers Woman of the Year Award in 2001 and received Transnet’s Leadership Award for Women Empowerment in 2002. In October 2014, she received a Champions Award in Business, in recognition of her role in the development of women.

 

Laurie Less
Executive Manager | CLEAR-AA

Laurie Less is currently employed as Executive Manager: CLEAR-AA in the Commerce, Law and Management faculty at Wits University. She was previously employed in various government agencies; the most recent being the Community Schemes Ombud Service (CSOS), within the Department of Human Settlements, as Executive: Corporate Services. She has over 12 years’ experience at an Executive level and has held strategic leadership roles over the past 16 years in various highly complex organisations. She brings with her a wealth of experience, having worked in both the private and public sectors. In the development sector, she worked as a senior programme manager for both Sweden’s SIDA and the Open Society Foundation of SA. Her core skills are in end-to-end operations services such as business strategy, HR, ICT, Communications & Marketing and Stakeholder Relations. She regards herself as a transformation leader and enjoys driving transformation and change processes in organisations. Amongst other qualifications, she holds a Masters in Public Administration (UWC).

 

Melanie Burke
Independent Change Practitioner

Melanie operates as an independent change practitioner and has some 25 years ‘professional experience, with expertise in most areas of business. As a change practitioner she is associated with several organisations across the private, public and not-for-profit sectors, where she brings to bear her expertise regarding leadership development, entrepreneurship, cultural intelligence, diversity appreciation, team development, collaboration and innovation.

She holds an international Masters of Business Administration (MBA) qualification, along with Project Management, Marketing and Diversity Management qualifications. Melanie serves voluntarily on the boards of NGOs and is well known for her support of entrepreneurs and their development.

Melanie lives in Cape Town.

 

Dr Nceba Ndzwayiba
General Manager | Netcare Limited SA

Dr Nceba Ndzwayiba (PhD – Interdisciplinary Studies: Wits) is General Manager: Enterprise and Supplier Development for Netcare Limited South Africa. He has more than 14 years’ experience in the private and public sector and has worked for organisations such as Airports Company South Africa, Netcare Ltd, the Parliament of RSA, Three Cities International and the Services Sector Education and Training Authority. His work expertise encompasses human capital development, organisational change, diversity and socio-economic transformation. His leadership roles include being Director of the Netcare Foundation; a Board Member of the Health and Welfare SETA, and a Guest Lecturer at the University of Stellenbosch, Henley Business School and the University of the Witwatersrand. Dr Ndzwayiba is a Social Justice activist. As such, he is interested in organisational justice and transformation, political economy, critical philosophy, postcolonialism and decolonisation.

 

Nritika Singh
Managing Director | Isilumko

Nritika holds a MBA Degree from Milpark Business School. During her tenure as Isilumko’s Managing Director, Nritika steered its strategic positioning as a below-the-line brand activations business.  Diversifying the business into the staffing industry, with a focus on both blue- and white-collar recruitment, resulted in exponential growth for the business. Based on Isilumko’s value proposition, operational efficiency and its superior financial performance, African tech giant EOH recognised the value of the business and acquired Isilumko to complement its own growth strategy.

In recognition of Nritika’s value as a senior Director, she remains Managing Director of Isilumko but was recently promoted to the role of Managing Director of EOH’s Recruitment and Staffing cluster as well as its Incubator division.

Nritika directs her talented workforce to create economic independence for over 11 000 candidates, by deploying them into the job market. She has a passion for empowering women and acts as a mentor and role model to her female staff. She relishes helping women – and the youth – reach their full potential.

In 2014, Nritika was honoured with the winner’s trophy for Top Performing Entrepreneur at the National Business Awards and, under her leadership, Isilumko has won various other accolades:

  • Job Creation Award – Oliver Top Empowerment Awards 2017
  • Diversity Award – Oliver Top Empowerment Awards 2017
  • Best Workplace Diversity & Inclusion Strategy Award – Careers 24 Future of HR Awards 2017
  • Customer Focus Award – National Business Awards 2016
  • Diversity Award – National Business Awards 2016
  • Diversity in the Workplace Award – National Business Awards 2015
  • Business Support Services Award – Top Women Awards 2014
  • Most Innovative Gender Empowered Company Award – Top Women Awards 2013
  • Business Support Services Award – Top Women Awards 2013

 

Lance Fanaroff
co-Founder | Integr8 IT

A Professor at the London School of Business has described Lance Fanaroff as a “Master Marketing Man and Dealmaker”. Through sheer grit and determination, Lance co-founded Integr8 IT, launching it from a tiny bedroom in 2001 – a far cry from its glamorous headquarters of today. Lance is a previous winner of the National Business Awards’ prestigious Entrepreneur of the Year trophy; he has also been a finalist for the Business Leader of the Year award. Lance has been honoured as a Top Entrepreneur in the Ernst & Young Worldwide Entrepreneur of the Year Awards, and has been named as one of the top IT Personalities of the Year. Lance’s entrepreneurial attitude has been one of the cornerstones of Integr8’s culture. In living by his values, his mantra has always been dream big and make it happen which is the reality for Integr8 and its clients, as it enters yet another era of compound expansion.

With his burning passion, clear vision and extreme confidence, Lance has guided Integr8 to become one of the largest private ICT companies in Africa. Integr8 IT has won many local and international accolades, namely: our own National Business Award for “Innovation Through Technology”; a Technology Top 100 Company Award ; an ICT African Achievers Award for “Most Innovative ICT Company in SA“ and Microsoft’s SA Gold Partner of the Year Award. Integr8 was recently ranked by the global MSPmentor 501 as one of only two South African companies in the Top 50, within the global list of MSPmentor’s Top 501 Managed Service Providers. Business Connexion (BCX), the largest listed ICT company in South Africa, recently purchased Integr8 IT for R128 million.

In addition to Integr8, Lance is co-Founder and Director of OpexRental (Asset Finance) ; FaxUnplugged (a fax-to-email company); ZocialPay (a social media payment platform) and Rola Commercial Properties.

 

Tollo Nkosi
CEO | Umso Construction

Tollo Nkosi is a civil engineer with over 20 years of industry experience. He has built his career up brick by brick – from working within on-site construction operations for large listed construction companies up to his current Executive level – today he leads one of the country’s most successful black-owned companies.

Tollo joined Umso Construction in 2001 and was instrumental in growing it from a small company to a large business. He has championed the growth strategy for Umso’s operations nationally over the past 5-10 years. This has given the business leverage to associate with major companies and undertake large-scale national-level projects including Gautrain, various Gauteng freeways and Transnet’s multi-purpose pipeline. Some of Umso’s key successes under Tollo’s stewardship:

  • Now operates national, with Developed expertise in civils & infrastructure – roads, bridges and water
  • Has achieved a level 9 CIDB grading – enabling Umso to take on bigger civils projects with unlimited value
  • Umso now employs some 1 000 people
  • Recognised as a Top Empowerment Company in the industry by the empowerment publication Impumelelo
  • Umso undertakes social responsibility projects to support communities wherever the company operates

 

Edna Sathekga-Montse
Executive: Diversity & Inclusion, RBB | Barclays Africa

Edna Sathekga-Montse is the Executive: Diversity and Inclusion, RBB at Barclays Africa. She has expertise in Transformation, Diversity and Inclusion across various industries including Manufacturing, Professional Services, FMCG, Mining and Financial Services. She is an expert in Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment and has made an invaluable contribution to the revision of the Codes of Good Practice.

 

Manglin Pillay
CEO | South African Institute of Civil Engineering (SAICE)

With over 15 years of industry experience in consulting engineering in various countries, Manglin prides himself on being adaptive, and deems his consulting engineering experience a blessing. He is grateful for the five years spent at Metago Environmental Engineers (Pty) Ltd, and Metago Engineering services (Pty) Ltd, where he learned to design tailings impoundments for the mining industry and carried out municipal waste management engineering projects. Manglin holds a Bsc Eng (Civil, Environmental) and an MBA from the University of Witwatersrand.

 

Phillip Tshikotshi
Associate Vice President & Head HR: Aegis Outsourcing South Africa

Phillip is a highly motivated Human Resources executive with more than 14 years’ experience in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO). Before joining the Human Resources space, Phillip occupied various management roles in the Contact Centre division both in the public & private sector.

His current role as an HR Executive is to champion the people and culture strategy for all the Aegis sites in South Africa while also serving as one of the Executive Committee (EXCO) members for the organization.

Phillip is passionate about talent development and invests most of his time in mentoring young leaders as well as driving the succession planning strategy. During his spare time, his calendar is usually booked for motivational speaking to aspire young entrepreneurs.

Phillip has won several global awards including “Model BPO Centre HR” and “Inclusions of Persons with Disabilities” for Aegis Outsourcing South Africa. He has recently completed his Management Advanced Programme (MAP) with Wits Business School to further sharpen his business acumen.

 

Sifiso Cele
HR Executive, Barclays Africa, Wealth Investment Management and Insurance

Mr Sifiso Cele is currently employed by Barclays Africa Group Limited as an HR Executive. Previously, he was employed by the Liberty Group as an Executive of Human Resources for STANLIB Limited. Within the Liberty Group, Sifiso also held head of HR roles for both Liberty Corporate and Liberty Health. Before joining the Liberty Group, he was employed as the Head of Talent Sourcing and Selection for Absa Corporate & Business Bank. Among others, Sifiso has worked for Standard Bank, ABI and Uniliver. Collectively, he has 17 years of experience within the Human Resources field and has been in executive roles for the last 13 years.

Sifiso holds an MBA from the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS), a Post-graduate Diploma in Business Management from UKZN,  an Honours degree in Industrial Sociology, a Bachelor of Social Sciences degree in Industrial Sociology & Organisational Psychology, both from UCT

 

Mohale Ralebitso
Founder and CEO
Itataise Investments

Mohale Ralebitso has excelled as an entrepreneur and is a seasoned transformational business leader. He is the founder and CEO of Itataise; he was also the Group Chairman of FCB South Africa and C-Squared Group. He previously worked at Old Mutual Emerging markets as Marketing Communications and Corporate Affairs Director on the Old Mutual Emerging Markets Exco, where he was responsible for brand, marketing, customer segmentation and value propositions design [CVPs] and market engagement across SA, Africa, Colombia, Mexico and India and China.

Before that, he was the Managing Executive for Absa Private Bank and served as a member of the Absa Retail Bank Exco and Absa Wealth Steering Committee. He joined the ABSA group in 2008 as the Group Executive responsible for group marketing and was a member of the Absa Business Bank and Absa Retail Bank Exco’s [ARCB]. He also served as Chairman for the Absa Rewards Co, director for AIFA (Absa Insurance and Financial Advisers) and Absa Trusts.

Mohale was formerly an investor in and the Executive Chairman of The Jupiter Drawing Room (Jhb) as well as the CEO of MSG Rimani –  the shareholder of reference in Jupiter and DDB SA. As executive chairman, he was pivotal to the transformation of Jupiter into a large agency breaking new business records including pulling on board an unprecedented            R1,1billion in new business during 2006. He was part of the team that concluded a deal with WPP in 2008 to take Jupiter global. During this time, he also co-founded and co-funded Metropolitan-Republic and co-led Jupiter’s acquisition of DDB-SA. He had joined the Jupiter Drawing Room from the Liberty Group where he was the Group Executive: Marketing, where he served on the Liberty Marketing and Distribution Exco and Liberty Group Executive Forum. He had joined the Liberty Group from TBWA\ South Africa, a diversified globally aligned marketing communications group, where he served as Group Development Director TBWA\South Africa Group and, prior to that, as Deputy MD of TBWA\HUNT\LASCARIS Johannesburg.

An 18 year career in Financial Services, advertising and marketing rescued him from a promising career in academia and research which started in the US in 1991 and ended at UCT in 1995 where he was studying towards a Masters in Industrial Sociology [industrial strategy]. Mohale is a seasoned strategic marketer and has worked on and driven strategy development for a number of leading international and local brands in the Beverages, FMCG, Financial Services, ICT, Tourism, social marketing and Broadcasting sectors including numerous product and company launches. He worked for 2 years as a researcher with the Ford Foundation Diversity Initiative at the Queens College of the City University of New York (CUNY) where he graduated with a BA Hons in Political Science and BA Hons in Sociology with a Psychology Minor.

He Completed the Harvard Senior Executive Program (SEP) in 1999.