Meet the Judges – NEDBANK & OLD MUTUAL

Conrad van Greunen

Conrad van Greunen holds a PhD in Commerce and is currently the Dean of the Faculty of Commerce at Educor – the largest private education supplier in Southern Africa. He started his career as a lecturer at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and has since lectured at various other private higher education institutions at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. Conrad has also developed and facilitated various training programmes, focusing on financial management and economics, with organisations such as Eskom, African Bank (ABIL), Ashanti, Mercedes Financial Services and the Nigerian Bottling Company (NBC). In 2017 he joined the Advtech Group (Central Academic Team at the Independent Institute of Education) where he held the position of Senior Head of Programme and where he was mainly responsible for managing a portfolio of economics modules. Besides education management and facilitation, Conrad actively participates in research. He is a reviewer for selected journals and has also published several articles that make a valuable contribution to knowledge-intensive organisations. Being an academic at heart, he is currently pursuing his second PhD, which is testimony of his unwavering focus and dedication to add value to knowledge-intensive organisations in today’s competitive knowledge-driven economy.

Wilhelmina Smith

Elmine was employed for 9 years in the Department of Education at Vista University, later Central University of Technology in Welkom, Free State where she obtained an M.Ed as well as 2 PhDs – one in Economic Literacy and one in Accounting Methodology.

At CUT she joined the Business Management Department where she lectured third year Accounting Methodology and was also involved in Post Graduate Supervision in Honours, Masters and PhD level.

In 2011 Elmine took up a post at the University of Fort Hare (Alice, Eastern Cape) in the Department of Business Management where she was responsible for lecturing Marketing Research to final year B Comm students. In the 3 years being employed at UFH, she was the sole supervisor of 28 Honours students and 10 Masters students in various aspects of Business Management and Marketing.

She also co-authored 11 articles published in international academic journals during that period. One article was read by 17 publishers and was requested to appear in book format.

Dikgang Motsepe

Dikgang is an Economist and is currently a Senior Lecture at Wits School of Governance, focusing on macro-economic policy, development, and public finance. Before joining academia, he worked as a Senior Economist at the NEAPAD Secretariat in the office of Prof. Nkuhlu, the Economic Advisor to President T. M. Mbeki and Chairman of the NEPAD Steering Committee; Programme Manager/Economist at the Business Trust, managing the community investment programme focusing on the Presidential Nodal Economic Development Programme; and a financial market economist at the South African Reserve Bank. He has gained experience in the field of financial markets and development economics.

Dikgang obtained a Masters in Development Finance with the University of Stellenbosch Business School, and both a BCom and BCom (Hons) in Economics from the University of Cape Town.

Mohammed Jahed

Professor Jahed holds a PhD in Economics and has obtained experience and expertise in public economics and finance, macroeconomic policy and management in the public sector. He has gained extensive experience in Academia.

He has served as senior economic planning specialist at the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) He was appointed Deputy Director General: Office of the Premier Limpopo Province, responsible for economic growth and development, economic policy, economic planning, transformation and provincial administration. Prof Jahed joined the South African business sector representative group, the National Business Initiative, as Director of Economics. From 2003 to 2005, he was seconded by the South African Presidency as Chief Economist and Head of Policy, Strategy and Research of the NEPAD Secretariat. Prof. Jahed has been Professor at the University of Witwatersrand in the Graduate School of Public and Development Management (2005-2010). He was subsequently appointed Divisional Executive: Policy and Integration at the DBSA. Prof Jahed was appointed as the Director of the Parliamentary Budget Office from 2013-2018. In January 2019, Prof Jahed was appointed as Professor in the School of Public Management, Governance and Public Policy, College of Business and Economics.

Prof Jahed currently serves on the NEPAD Business Foundation Board.

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen is public policy analyst with over 20 years of experience. He has worked as an independent analyst since 2007. His client have included universities, non-governmental organisations and science councils. As an entrepreneur, he has build several online applications focused on making markets work for small businesses. This includes ZApreneur, which focuses on South African small businesses. More recently he has created a lead service for researchers and analysts called Think Workers.

He previously served as head of the secretariat for the People’s Budget Campaign. He serves on the board of the South African Labour Bulletin. He holds a Masters in Management from University of the Witwatersrand. His current research areas include public expenditure and inequality, and small business development.

Omano Edigheji

Omano was with the Centre for Policy Studies as a Senior Researcher where he also coordinated the Centre’s research programme. A political economist by training, Omano’s research interests are broadly in the area of International Political Economy, with a focus on Globalisation and the State in developing countries, and on issues of governance, democratisation, civil society and development in Africa in the context of globalisation, as well as state-society relations in developing countries. Omano also researches on South African political economy, including Black Economic Empowerment.

He is in the editorial board of the journal, GLOBALIZATIONS. He is a regular commentor on South African radio, television and newspapers. Omano is currently based in Abuja and he commutes between SA and Nigeria. He works for Zeezi Oasis Leadership Inspiration Limited.

Yumna Ebrahim

Yumna holds a masters degree in economics, and is a practicing economist in the private sector. She works as an independent consultant, and also lectures economics part-time at public and private institutions. She has experience in economic analysis and has also worked on a variety of consulting projects to various organisations. Yumna has been involved with the Competition since 2009, when she won the prize for first runner-up and since then she has assisted as a virtual tutor, and a Filter Panellist.

Nompumelelo Radebe

Ms. Nompumelelo Radebe is a Technical Assistance Advisor in the Fiscal Affairs Department of the International Monetary Fund in Washington D.C., USA. Formerly, she was Director in the Public Finance Division of the National Treasury of South Africa with over 15 years’ experience in Public Financial Management and Policy Analysis. Her role entailed provision of budget, policy and programme support to the police sector in South Africa. She also contributed to key budget publications such as the Budget Review, Medium Term Budget Policy Statement and the Estimates (and Adjusted Estimates) of National Expenditure.

Ms Radebe has contributed to the development and implementation of several public financial management reforms at both local and national government level such as on expenditure and performance monitoring and reporting, capacity building, performance-based budgeting, and more recently, gender-responsive budgeting. She holds a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the University of Sydney in Australia, a Certificate of Advanced Study in Public Administration from Syracuse University in the United States (US), and a Bachelor of Technology Degree and National Diploma in Public Finance and Accounting from Tshwane University of Technology in South Africa.

Isaah Mhlanga

Isaah is the Chief Economist of Rand Merchant Bank, responsible for providing strategic economic advice to the bank and its clients.

Part of my responsibility involve leading the Rand Merchant Bank Markets Research Team covering macroeconomics, fixed income, currencies, credit, data science and machine learning, and ESG for South Africa and several African countries, the UK, India, and the US, to serve the bank, institutional and corporate clients Formerly, he was the Executive Chief Economist of Alexforbes and a member of Alexforbes Investments Limited executive committee (Exco).

He has more than a decade industry experience spanning both public and private sector, having started his professional career as an economist at the International Monetary Fund’s regional office in Pretoria. He has worked for the National Treasury’s economic policy unit. His private sector experience span roles as an economist at two local investment banks, where he was responsible for macroeconomic strategy and forecasting before he joined Alexforbes as its Executive Chief Economist. Isaah has also lectured undergraduate economics and econometrics at the University of Johannesburg.

He is a Trustee of Study Trust and a Non- Executive Board Member of Kutlwanong, both of which are Non-Profit Organisations specialising in the education sector. He is a Fellow of the Economic Research Southern Africa (ERSA) and a columnist for the Business Day and Sunday Times where he writes on fiscal policy, monetary policy, financial markets, and investments. Isaah was named Economist of the year 2019 by the Association of Black Securities and Investment Professionals (ABSIP).

Qualifications (All from the University of Johannesburg):

MCom in Financial Economics; BCom (Hons) in Econometrics; BCom in Economics and Econometrics

Isaac Matshego

Isaac is an Economist in the Group Economic Unit, Nedbank Group. He was previously with Standard Bank Ltd’s Group Economics Division – Africa Desk, and Investment Solutions Ltd’s Market and Economic research unit.

He holds degrees in Economics from the University of North West and the University of South Africa and a Masters in Commerce specialising in Development Finance from the University of Cape Town. His research interests include the development of capital markets in developing economies, development finance, fiscal policy and sovereign risk analysis.

He is a regular commentator in the print and electronic media.

Johann Els

Johann is responsible for all areas of macro-economic research. This includes analysis of the global economy – specifically those economies that impact most on South Africa, namely the USA, Europe and China. He is also tasked with detailed research of all South African economic variables. Specific focus areas include the rand, inflation, interest rates and fiscal matters. Johann provides economic input into the investment processes of the various investment boutiques within Old Mutual Investment Group. In addition, he serves as economist for the broader Old Mutual. Economic research is done with one thing in mind: What is the impact on the different asset classes and thus investment decisions?

After graduating at the University of Stellenbosch, where he studied courtesy of a South African Reserve Bank (SARB) bursary, Johann joined the SARB’s. Following a period as an economics lecturer at the University of Stellenbosch, he joined Trust Bank (one of the constituent banks of today’s ABSA Bank) as an economist. Johann joined Old Mutual as an economist in 1991.

Mampho Modise

Dr Mampho Modise is a Deputy Director-General of Public Finance at the National Treasury, dealing with public finance management. Her role is to develop frameworks on fiscal and financial monitoring in the evaluation of policy proposals, review of expenditure plans and service delivery trends of National Departments and State Owned Enterprises, aimed at strengthening and achieving optimal budgetary spending through a transparent financial oversight and accountability process.

Dr Mampho Modise completed her tertiary training at the University of Pretoria, obtaining her Bcom Economics, BCom Honours Econometrics, Mcom Econometrics (cum laude) and a PhD in Economics in 2013. Her PhD thesis is titled “Essays on Determinants, Spillovers and Predictability of the South African Stock Returns”, where she managed to use her familiarity with the economy and added valuable literature to the limited financial markets’ research.

She started working for the South African Reserve Bank in 2004, where she was an intern and progressed to be an Economist. She left the Bank in 2009 to work for National Treasury where she started as a Senior Economic in the Economic policy Unit. She was soon promoted to Director of Fiscal Policy, Chief Director of Strategy and Risk Management and she is now a Deputy Director-General of Public Finance.