News

Doctor Thabane Vincent Maphai (Vincent)

Chairperson

Independent Non-Executive Director

BA, BA (Hons), MPhil, DPhil, Advanced Management Programme (Harvard) and several certificates and diplomas

Appointed 16 July 2020

Vincent has a wealth of experience and is passionate about education. He is currently the chairperson of Sibanye-Stillwater Limited and a non-executive director of Discovery Limited. Previously, Vincent was the Director of Corporate Affairs and Transformation at SAB and served as the southern African Chairperson of BHP Billiton. Vincent has accumulated 20 years’ experience in the academic profession, and 15 years as a senior executive in the private sector. He has served on the boards of various companies, including the SABC and the Presidential Review Commission into the restructuring of the public sector. Vincent also held a two-year academic position at Williams College in Massachusetts.

Douglas Maitakhole Ramaphosa

Independent Non-Executive Director

MA Social Sciences

Appointed 9 March 2018

Douglas offers a wealth of experience, with more than 25 years of business experience through various director and board memberships, as well as holding various senior executive positions for a number of large organisations, including Transnet, ABSA and Anglo American. Previously, Douglas served as group executive of corporate affairs at Altron, was CEO of Bytes Healthcare Solutions and, prior to that, managing director of Bytes Specialised Solutions. He served on the board of Eskom Enterprises for five years and was director and chairperson of Rotek Industries. Douglas was appointed as an independent non-executive director of Curro Holdings Limited on 26 January 2018. He is also a non-executive director of EnviroServ, a waste-management company, as well as of the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (WESSA), and chairperson and director of Satori Tech Hub.

Andries Mellet (Dries)

Alternate Non-Executive Director to Nico de Waal

CA(SA), B Compt Hons

Appointed 1 May 2017

Dries qualified as a chartered accountant after completing his articles with PwC and has been working for the PSG Group since 2010. Dries was the financial director of mCubed Holdings Limited from October 2010 to February 2011 and Capevin Holdings Limited from April 2012 to November 2013. Dries served as secretary to the PSG Group Executive and joined the PSG Alpha team in 2012.

Pieter Nicolaas de Waal (Nico)

Non-Executive Director

BEng (Mech), MBA

Appointed 1 May 2017

Nico holds an MBA from IESE Business School of the University of Navarre (Spain) and a B.Eng (in Mechanical Engineering) Cum Laude degree from the University of Stellenbosch. Nico joined the PSG Group in 2011 and currently serves as the chief executive officer of PSG Alpha Proprietary Limited. Prior to joining the PSG Group, Nico was an executive at SABMiller plc from 2008 to 2010. He also served as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, Inc. from 2001 to 2007, specialising in strategy and operations.

Samara Totaram (Samara)

Chief Financial Officer

Executive Director

CA(SA), CFA

Appointed as CFO on 1 January 2017, and officially appointed to the Board on 18 April 2017

Samara, a qualified chartered accountant, completed her articles with Deloitte & Touche (in South Africa and New York) and then spent 18 months at the Royal Bank of Scotland in London prior to joining PSG Capital in 2007. In 2010 Samara was appointed as a director of PSG Capital and was primarily involved in new listings, capital raisings and other commercial transactions, merger and acquisitions and general corporate finance consulting. In October 2010, she joined Thembeka Capital Limited (Thembeka), a PSG Group supported B-BBEE investment company, and was appointed as its managing director in 2013. Samara drove the unlocking of value for Thembeka’s black shareholders. Samara joined Curro in October 2014 as the managing director of the Meridian venture and also served as a member of the Curro executive committee until December 2016 before joining the executive management team of STADIO.

Dr Christiaan Rudolph van der Merwe (Chris)

Non-Executive Director

B. Prim (Ed), B.Ed, M.Ed (Cum Laude), PhD in Education

Appointed 1 July 2017

Chris stepped down as chief executive officer of STADIO Holdings on 31 March 2020, having been appointed to this position in July 2017. Previously, Chris was the chief executive officer of Curro Limited (Curro) having founded Curro in 1998 in a church in Durbanville, which opened its doors with 28 learners. In 1999, he constructed Curro Durbanville’s campus and in January 2000 approximately 320 learners started the academic year on this new campus. In 2017 Chris stepped down as chief executive officer of Curro to start STADIO Holdings and continues to serve as a non-executive director on the board of directors of Curro.

JACOBUS JOHANNES HUMAN (JOHAN)

Chief operating officer (COO)

Executive Director

Qualifications: B Com B.Ed (Honours), Higher Ed Diploma (Postgrad) Med (Didactics)

Appointed 1 April 2020

Johan was appointed as co-COO of STADIO HOLDINGS in August 2019 and full COO effective 1 April 2020. Previously, Johan was CEO of Embury (renamed to Stadio in 2019) which he co-founded in 2000. Embury was acquired by CURRO in 2013 and unbundled as part of the STADIO Group in 2017. Johan has almost 30 years of combined public and private higher education experience.

CHRISTIAN PHILLIPUS DAVID VORSTER (CHRIS V) (Chris)

Chief Executive Officer

Executive Director

Qualifications: BA Social Science, BA Hons Human Resource Development, MA Management and Development

Appointed 1 April 2020

Chris V is a highly experienced businessman with a Masters degree in Management and Development (cum laude) and over 20 years’ experience in the higher education sector. He founded the highly successful Southern Business School (SBS) in 1996, which today accommodates approximately 13 000 distance learning students. SBS joined the STADIO Group in November 2007 and Mr CPD Vorster was appointed as co-chief operating officer of STADIO Holdings in August 2019, and chief executive officer of STADIO Holdings, effective 1 April 2020.

Dr Divya Singh (Divya)

Chief Academic Officer

Executive Director

BA (Law); LL.B (Cum Laude); LL.M; LL.D; Masters in Tertiary Education Management (with Honours)

Appointed as CAO on 1 February 2017, and officially appointed to the Board on 27 June 2017

Divya is an admitted advocate of the High Court of South Africa, having practiced for her own account for seven years. She is a Certified Ethics Officer by The Ethics Institute and the Executive Director of Globethics.net Southern Africa. Divya has been a professional academic for the past twenty-six years. Her last position was Vice Principal Advisory and Assurance Services at the University of South Africa (UNISA) where she was responsible for Legal Services, Risk and Compliance, the Ethics Office, Communications and Marketing and the Institutional Information Office (Data Protection and Privacy). Divya also served in the capacity of Registrar Governance as well as the Deputy Registrar, taking responsibility for institutional student administration. Divya’s research profile (in summary) includes more than 30 articles in accredited journals, ten book chapters, one book (co-edited), has presented numerous conference papers and keynote presentations, locally and globally. She has been the editor of two academic journals and an editor of Butterworths Judgment-Online (JOL). She has received awards domestically and internationally for academic contribution and community service and engagement, as well as stakeholder recognition.

Khayelihle Sibusiso Sithole (Khaya)

Independent Non-Executive Director

CA(SA)

Appointed 1 May 2017

Khaya qualified as a chartered accountant having completed his articles with the FirstRand group. Khaya has since lectured Financial Accounting and Taxation at various universities and was commissioned by the University of Cape Town to participate in the FASSET-funded Bukela Ufunde programme providing Financial Reporting lectures in African languages to students throughout South Africa. He has been a director, and programme managed, the Thuthuka Programme whilst lecturing and was the youngest academic member appointed to the Senate of University of KwaZulu Natal, the National Board of Directors for ABASA and the SAICA Eastern Region Council. Khaya is an editor of three textbooks, namely Graded Questions on Income Tax (Mitchell & Mitchell), Gripping GAAP (Service & Kolitz) and Gripping GAAP – Graded Questions (Service). His primary passion is the mentorship of students, the advancement of the profession amongst black communities and the promotion of principlebased teaching in Financial Reporting and he is a mentor on the Shanduka Black Umbrellas Programme which makes him responsible for the mentorship of start-up businesses and evaluation of business plans submitted to Shanduka and serves on the Advisory Panel for Shanduka Black Umbrellas. Khaya previously served on the executive committee of the SAICA Young CA Network in Gauteng and in 2016, became the second South African to be awarded the Academic Fellowship by the International Accounting Standards Board for 2017/18 in London. Since January 2017, Khaya has been a graduate student at the Said Business School at the University of Oxford, UK.

Renganayagee Kisten (Roji)

Independent Non-Executive Director

B.Admin; B.Admin (Hons); MDP (Stell. Bus. School); GMP (Harvard Bus. School)

Appointed 1 May 2017

Rojie has a B.Admin (Hons) degree from Stellenbosch Business School and completed the General Management Programme at Harvard Business School. Rojie spent most of her working career at Old Mutual group, including Nedcor Bank. Her work experience includes amongst others: Asset management in both listed and unlisted entities; Local and international capital raising for unlisted funds; Stakeholder management within South Africa and the rest of the African Continent; investor relations; and Managing enterprise development finance.