Dr Amit Thakker is chairman of Africa Healthcare Federation (AHF), chairman of Africa Health Business (AHB), founder and board director of the East Africa Healthcare Federation, chairman of Kenya Healthcare Federation (KHF) and the co-founder of Avenue Healthcare.
In 2004, the Kenya Private Sector Alliance created its health sector arm, the KHF, and Dr Thakker served as one of its founding directors. In addition to influencing public policy, KHF actively advocates for issues facing the health sector. It is also dedicated to engaging the government and all relevant stakeholders in achieving quality healthcare by maximising the contribution of the private sector in Kenya. He was elected as chairman of KHF in 2015. Under his leadership, KHF was instrumental in establishing the East Africa Healthcare Federation (EAHF) in 2012, which champions the same ideals at regional level covering Burundi, Ethiopia, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya.
With the aim of facilitating the unification of all stakeholders in the health sector, Dr Thakker established AHB, a company that stimulates the business of healthcare in Africa; under his initiative, the AHF was launched, unifying the five regions of Africa (Central, North, South, West and East). AFH comprises 45 countries under a single health platform.
Dr Thakker has been awarded several accolades. He was voted the Best Male Entrepreneur of the Year’ by Rotary International in 1999. In 2004, he received the Chairman’s Award from the Kenya Medical Association, and in 2005, the Round Table Association of East Africa gave him its Best Chairman’s Award.
Dr Thakker has a bachelor’s degree in medicine and surgery from the University of Nairobi, Kenya and an executive MBA from National Insurance Academy (NIA) in India. He has also completed a health leadership training course at George Washington University, USA.
Cynthia Schoeman is the managing director of Ethics Monitoring & Management Services (Pty) Ltd and a founding director of the Ethics Practitioners Association. She has over 15 years’ experience in the field of workplace ethics and governance, and has developed practical tools and services to support the effective and proactive management of workplace ethics. She is a published author in the area of workplace ethics, having written an ethics guide and two ethics books. She is a regular speaker on workplace ethics at conferences and is often interviewed on TV and radio as an ethics expert. She also lectures on ethics at most of South Africa’s top business schools.
Catherine Duggan is professor of management and political economy and vice dean for strategy and research at the African Leadership University School of Business (ALUSB), Rwanda. Prior to joining ALUSB, she was a professor at Harvard Business School (HBS) for nearly a decade, teaching courses on globalisation, political economy and leadership to MBA students and executives. She has also taught in MBA and executive education programmes at Saïd Business School (SBS) at the University of Oxford, and the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) at the University of Pretoria.
At ALUSB Professor Duggan is teaching in the MBA, developing the school’s executive education programmes, and writing a series of new case studies on business and the business environment on the continent. These projects continue work that she did at Harvard, where she helped develop and teach MBA and executive courses on the political economy of the business environment, and at Oxford, where she developed and taught Doing Business in Africa, an elective course offered in the MBA and executive MBA programmes.
Professor Duggan has won numerous awards. At HBS she was only the second woman in a decade to receive the Faculty Award for Outstanding Teaching in the Required Curriculum, an award she received in two consecutive years (2013 and 2014). Also at HBS she received the Charles M. Williams Award for Excellence in Teaching and was named the Berol Corporation Fellow. She is the author of a number of case studies on African firms and countries. She has also written several cases for Harvard and Oxford.
She earned a PhD in political science from Stanford University, where she was the GJ Lieberman Fellow for the Social Sciences. Prior to attending Stanford, she was an industry analyst for the telecommunications group at the law firm of Mayer, Brown & Platt (now Mayer Brown LLP), and received a BA with honours in political science from Brown University.
Clarence Mini is currently the chairperson of the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS). He previously served as chairperson of the Board of Healthcare Funders of Southern Africa (BHF) and board member of the Government Employees’ Medical Scheme.
Prior to his current commitment, he also previously successfully fulfilled the following roles: principal medical officer for Port Elizabeth Municipality, national director for Family Health International and national coordinator and deputy national director of Management Sciences for Health.
He has served as co-chairperson of the National AIDS Convention of South Africa (NACOSA). NACOSA wrote the first National HIV/AIDS Plan for South Africa in 1994. He has served on the committee of inquiry into National Health Insurance (NHI), on the board of directors for the Hospice Palliative Care Association and as executive director of the MESAB Palliative Care Initiative.
He was a member of the core team that wrote the latest HIV/AIDS National Strategic Plan, the past president of the Gauteng Medical Association and the chairperson of the Gauteng Health Facility Accreditation Committee. He served as member of the board of the Institute for Human Evolution at Wits University and as a trustee of St Andrew’s School for Girls. He has been a member of the Johannesburg Mayoral AIDS Council, chairman of the board of directors for Africa Health Placements and corporate affairs executive for Thebe ya Bophelo Healthcare Administrators.
Vulindlela Lester Ndlovu is Cimas’ Chief Executive Officer, a position he assumed on 1 January 2016. He joined the group in 2013 as the group finance executive before being promoted to the position of group chief executive officer in June 2015.
He is a chartered accountant and holds a Bachelor of Accountancy degree from the University of Zimbabwe. He is a past president and council member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Zimbabwe.
He is a former managing director of BancABC Zimbabwe and of Lufuno Capital Partners, where he worked on private equity and consulting assignments in Africa and worked with Small Enterprise Assistance Funds (SEAF) in promoting the SEAF Global Vintage Flexible Fund. He is a former partner at KPMG Zimbabwe, where he started the KPMG corporate finance practice in Zimbabwe in 1997.
He has served on various other boards, including those of TA Holdings and Brainworks Capital Management.
Dr Debbie Pearmain has some 20 years of experience in the South African health sector in both the private and public environment. She spent about seven years working in the public health sector and was responsible for the drafting of major health legislation, the vetting of contracts and the management of litigation for the national Department of Health.
Her experience in the private sector includes working for a medical scheme administrator, the Hospital Association of South Africa, BHF and for the last four years as an independent legal consultant.
She was previously appointed by the Minister of Health to the Council for Medical Schemes, the Medicines Pricing Committee and the Ministerial Advisory Committee on NHI. She has a BA LLB from the University of the Witwatersrand and a doctorate in health law from the University of Pretoria.
Kuldeep Singh Rajput is founder and CEO of the Biofourmis Group. Inspired by advances in biosensor technology, he took a break from his doctoral studies to build Biofourmis. Biofourmis is a fast-growing digital health start-up that has developed an AI-empowered health analytics platform, which uses readily available wearable biosensors and mobile technologies to continuously personalise user experience in order to optimise engagement and predict health exacerbation days in advance of a critical event.
He is an active member of the healthcare innovation and entrepreneurship community in Singapore, with a specific interest in technology-enabled healthcare innovation. During his PhD studies at the National University of Singapore, he built bioelectronics implants, which aim to control biological processes and treat diseases by modulating electric impulses. Prior to moving to Singapore, he was a researcher at MIT Media Lab’s Camera Culture Group.
He seeks to connect ideas and people to spark innovation. The team at Biofourmis is powered by the passion of its mission to improve the lives of patients by augmenting personalised care with digital therapeutics.
Dr Mothudi is the managing director of the Board of Healthcare Funders of Southern Africa (BHF).
He is a qualified medical practitioner with over 21 years’ experience in health care, having held various positions in health care management and strategic leadership positions in both the public and private health care sector. Prior to joining the BHF, he worked at Sizwe Medical Fund, initially as the executive head for operations and clinical services, and then as the principal executive officer.
He holds a Bachelor of Science degree, in chemistry and applied chemistry. As a medical doctor he specialised in sports medicine. This afforded him an opportunity to work with various sports organisations and teams caring for athletes in different sporting codes. He has served on several boards and was also a deputy chairman of the Doping Subcommittee of the South African Football Association.
Natalie Africa serves as senior director for global health and private sector engagement at the UN Foundation. Since 2014 she has led private sector engagement for the UN Secretary-General’s Every Woman Every Child multi-stakeholder movement, mobilising business actions globally in support of women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health and supporting innovation and public-private partnerships.
She previously headed the Secretariat of the Business Call to Action, a business platform aimed at driving innovative, inclusive business models and hosted by the UNDP. Prior to joining UNDP she was senior program officer at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), where she designed and executed gender-inclusive programming with IFC investee companies in the financial, extractive and agribusiness sectors across Africa and south-east Asia. She has also held senior positions within the banking sector, working for Absa-Barclays in South Africa and HSBC Bank Bermuda.
She served as a diplomat with the South African Department of Foreign Affairs, including during the Nelson Mandela presidency, serving as counsellor for multilateral affairs in Paris and as director for West Africa. She kicked off her career in the area of women’s development in South Africa working for a start-up women’s micro-finance organisation, the Women’s Development Bank, and driving a historic national non-governmental campaign around the UN Beijing Women’s Conference.
Natalie holds a BA in history from the University of Jean Moulin III in Lyon, France, and an MA from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. She serves on a number of non-profit boards and currently lives in New York.
Dr Sipho Kabane is senior strategist at the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS), where he is responsible, among others, for the development and review of the prescribed minimum benefits and the management of the liaison between the CMS and the national Department of Health on key policy issues. Prior to this he worked in the national Department of Health, where he was responsible for the development and implementation of ‘Ideal Clinic’ initiatives at national and provincial level.
He has an outstanding record in managing province-wide health service provision with a focus on quality, reform and continuous improvement. He is skilled in managing diverse and multidisciplinary teams, as well as the financial and operational aspects of health departments. He is experienced in building and communicating strategy and vision, and has a strong understanding of economics and its effect on health services. A competent and inspirational leader and project manager, he is an active and productive member of numerous committees contributing to the health and well-being of communities and individuals.
His qualifications include a PhD in health systems from the University of Pretoria, an MPhil in economic policy from the University of Stellenbosch and an MBA from Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh Business School), Edinburgh UK.
Commissioner Botha has worked for Sonke Gender Justice as media and government liaison manager for eight years. Through his advocacy work, Commissioner Botha has been featured in numerous newspapers such as City Press, Sowetan, Sunday Times, Sunday Independent and other community-based newspapers as both a commentator and columnist. He has participated in radio and television features and interviews and is widely recognised for his work in South Africa and across the world.
He worked as the dissemination officer for the International Red Cross based in South Africa in the 1980s and was a founder member and secretary-general of the South African Men’s Forum, where he dealt with issues of advocacy, training and community-based structure building. He co-hosts weekly talkshows on many commercial and community radio stations, reaching millions of listeners each week; these include Motsweding FM, Radio 2000 and Lesedi FM. Commissioner Botha currently serves on the boards Lifeline (Vereeniging), Genderlinks and the South Africa Institute for Social and Health Science, based at the University of South Africa. In 2007, during a women’s day celebration speech in Galeshewe near Kimberley, President Thabo Mbeki singled him out for special praise and expressed his appreciation for Commissioner Botha’s work with men with regard to gender equality in South Africa. Commissioner Botha sits on the finance committee of the CGE and also chairs the IT and Communication Committee. He’s currently completing his honours degree in gender studies at the University of South Africa.
Shivani Ranchod is the co-founder and CEO of Percept, a multidisciplinary consultancy driven by heart and curiosity. She is a healthcare actuary and a part-time academic at the University of Cape Town.
She holds a number of governance positions including being a board member of the Council for Medical Schemes. She is also currently a long-term advisor to the Government Technical Advisory Centre. The health system is the object of her intellectual affection, and she describes her work as bringing careful attention to bear on socially meaningful problems.
Dr Somadoda Fikeni is an acknowledged expert and specialist in the areas of political science, public policy development and analysis, history, political economy and heritage. He is recognised as a leading public commentator on politics, policy, economic, social and heritage issues in major South African and international media and forums. He is a professional public speaker.
He has received several honours and awards in South Africa and abroad, one of these being an honorary chieftaincy that was bestowed on him in Ghana. He is a consistent and passionate community development activist and has initiated a number of community development and charity organisations to mobilise resources for assistance of the poor and the disadvantaged. His main vehicle is the Ubuntu Charity Organisation that mobilises resources and distributes them to disadvantaged and vulnerable persons, especially children in rural communities. In the 1980s and 1990s, he used the Mount Ayliff Development Association (which later became a development agency) to implement community work.
He is an honorary professor at UNISA. He was also voted number one political analyst in South Africa on an SAFM programme which asked listeners to vote through calling in, SMS, Twitter and Facebook. He is chairperson of the Independent Development Trust (IDT) board and chairperson of the Eminent Persons Group for Sports Transformation in South Africa. He has just been appointed as a member of a BRICS think-tank forum.
He holds a BA and BA Honours (Unitra), an MA (Queens University, Canada) and a PhD (Michigan State University, USA).
He currently chairs the South African Heritage Resources Agency and the IDT. He has also chaired the Walter Sisulu University Council and has been both an interim chairperson and deputy chair of the Eastern Cape Development Corporation.
Moremi Nkosi holds a BA in Economics and Development Studies and a Master’s in Public Health specialising in health economics. He is currently employed at Medscheme as group functional specialist: public policy.
He previously served as the general manager for family practitioners and specialist strategy within Medscheme’s Strategic Advisory Unit. His portfolio of responsibilities included provider profiling, peer review engagements, FP upskilling as well as developing and implementing strategies for cost-effective pathology services. He has worked for the national Department of Health as a technical advisor on NHI with specific focus on policy development, reimbursement tools and broader health financing reforms, and served on the board of the Council for Medical Schemes.
He previously worked in the academic arena as a lecturer in health economics and health systems research. He has published a number of articles and book chapters focusing on health systems issues, including organisational culture, leadership and its impact on the functioning of hospitals.
Professor Phakeng obtained her junior degree, majoring in pure mathematics, at the University of Bophuthatswana, now North-West University in Mmabatho in 1987. She completed all her postgraduate studies, which ended with a PhD in 2002 at Wits University where she also served for five years as President of Convocation (2011-2016).
Her academic career was made at Wits, where she started as a research assistant in 1996 and left as an associate professor of mathematics education and founding director of the award-winning Marang Centre for Mathematics and Science Education in December 2007, to take up the position of executive dean of the College of Science, Engineering and Technology (CSET) at Unisa in January 2008. She had a very successful tenure as dean of CSET at Unisa and was promoted to serve as vice- principal of a newly established portfolio of Research and Innovation on 1 July 2011. When her five- year term ended in June 2016, she joined UCT as DVC for Research and Internationalisation. She has been appointed to the position of vice-chancellor of UCT from 1 July 2018.
In 2016 she was appointed by then deputy-president Ramaphosa to chair the HRDC Standing Committee on Mathematics and Science. She served as member of the board of the CSIR and chaired its RDI Committee till September 2017. She served as national president of the Association for Mathematics Education of South Africa (AMESA) from 2002 to 2006, chairperson of the Board of the South African Mathematics Foundation from 2005 to 2006, and secretary and member of the executive committee of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (PME) from 2003 to 2007.
Cheurombo Pswarayi is an award-winning and goal-driven entrepreneur who has attended various medical industry conferences to stay updated with the industry trends. She is the founder and managing director of MedTours Africa, a medical tourism facilitating company. MedTours Africa works with medical aid companies in Zimbabwe such as Bonvie, First Mutual Health, Fidelity Life Medical Aid Society, Generation Health and MASCA, among others. MedTours Africa is partnered with a wide network of hospitals in India, the United Arab Emirates, Mauritius and Europe.
Her achievements have led to her being recognised in Zimbabwe and internationally where she was listed as one of the top 100 Most Impactful Healthcare Leaders Global Listing of 2018. She has attended conferences in South Africa, Turkey, China, Croatia, Dubai and India. She has been a speaker and a panellist at some of these conferences. She is also the founder and executive director of CJV Medical Supplies, a laboratory equipment supplier in Zimbabwe. She is the managing director and founder of a sanitary paper trader company in Zimbabwe, Paper Stocks Private Limited. Her achievements in the medical tourism industry include various awards; an award for entrepreneurial excellence from Megafest Business Awards, the African Women’s Award for most dynamic startup, the Live Wire Corporate Award for the best medical tourism company and winner in the services category from the Women in Conference and Awards. Apart from being a serial entrepreneur, she is an adventurous and well-read individual who enjoys sightseeing and travelling.
Dr Graham Hukins holds a BSc (Bachelor of Science Physiology and Biochemistry),
MB BCh (Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery), M Prax Med (Master in Family Practice),
DPH, DOH, DTM&H (Diplomas in Public Health, Occupational Health and Tropical Medicine), M Med (Master’s in Community Health) and M Com (Master’s in Commerce – Business Administration).
He has lectured and consulted both locally and internationally on the design, implementation and management of cost-efficient health care systems. His particular interests are clinical governance, evidenced-based best practice, clinical epidemiology and the psychosocial aetiology of commonly occurring medical conditions.
Mohsen George, a medical doctor, has been the vice-president of Health Insurance Organization (HIO) in Egypt since January 2014. For three years before this, he was its chief medical officer.
He has several areas of experience in addition to health insurance systems, including training and education, quality in health care and health financing.
He studied at the Harvard School of Public Health, George Mason University, Indian Institute of Management, Flagship Program of the World Bank Institute and the National Institute of Public Health of Japan.
He is a general and laparoscopic surgery consultant, and a member of the General Surgery Scientific Council of both the Egyptian Fellowship Board and the Arab Board of Health Specializations.
He’s also a member of the European Pathway Association, the editorial board of the International Journal of Care Pathway, and the advisory board of the Journal of the Arab Board of Health Specializations.
Professor Malegapuru William Makgoba is a leading South African immunologist, physician, public health advocate and academic. He is a former vice-chancellor of the University of KwaZulu-Natal and former president of the MRC (SA). In 2013 he was recognised as ‘a pioneer in higher education transformation’, and awarded the Order of Mapungubwe in Silver. He is the national health ombudsman.
Educated at the University of Natal Medical School (UNMS) during the era of Steve Biko and the Black Consciousness Movement, Makgoba spent some years abroad as an immunology researcher before returning to South Africa in 1994 to champion transformation in higher education. Since then, he has been responsible for several major research initiatives around HIV/AIDS, most notably the South African AIDS Vaccine Initiative. He was also outspoken against the disastrous policy of AIDS denialism during the 2000s, coming into conflict with some of the most powerful politicians in the country at that time.
Recently retired from his 10-year tenure as vice-chancellor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, he now chairs the Transformation Oversight Committee of Public Universities.
Throughout his career, he has demonstrated the vision, courage and integrity of a great leader, with a clear passion for improving South African lives and a laser focus on equal opportunity for all.
Dave Popik, CFE, is a seasoned health care executive with a unique blend of 25 years of experience in fighting fraud, from enforcement and healthcare informatics to information technology and business administration. As Florida Blue’s senior director of special investigations and physician ancillary services, he is directly responsible for all internal and external fraud investigations, risk management and data analytics to identify and prevent fraud, waste and abuse (FWA).
He has acquired significant clinical knowledge and experience in both the provider and payer segments of the health care industry. Prior to joining Florida Blue in 2012, he was a director at UnitedHealth Group where he also played a vital role in the payment integrity programme focusing on FWA operations. Previously, he worked at TriCenturion, LLC and Palmetto GBA (Blue Cross Blue Shield South Carolina).
He started his career with the South Carolina Highway Patrol, where he honed his investigative skills by working closely with various state and federal law enforcement agencies.
As a respected leader in public health care fraud, he was appointed to serve as a national board member and vice-chair of the National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association (NHCAA), a private-public association of health care fraud investigators, regulators and prosecutors. Additionally, he is a member of the board of directors for the National Anti-Fraud Advisory Board for the Blues (NAAB) and serves on the Healthcare Fraud Prevention Partnership (HFPP).
Fred Swaniker is the founder and CEO of African Leadership University. He is deeply passionate about Africa and believes that the missing ingredient on the continent is good leadership. In line with this, he has co-founded three organisations that aim to catalyse a new generation of ethical, entrepreneurial African leaders: African Leadership Academy, African Leadership Network and African Leadership University. Collectively, these institutions aim to groom three million leaders for Africa over a 50-year period.
A passionate entrepreneur, he also served as founder and CEO of Terra Education, a global education company that today provides leadership training to about 4000 people annually at 46 sites in 20 countries in Latin America, Asia, Africa and Europe. Prior to his work in education, he co-founded Synexa Life Sciences, a biotechnology company with operations in Cape Town, Berlin, London and Dublin.
Prior to launching his entrepreneurial pursuits, Swaniker worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company in South Africa. He has been recognised as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and was listed by Forbes Magazine among the top ten young ‘power men’ in Africa. He has an MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, where he was named an Arjay Miller Scholar, a distinction awarded to the top 10% of each graduating class. He holds a BA in economics with a minor in mathematical statistics from Macalester College (magna cum laude).
He was born in Ghana but has lived and worked in about 10 different African countries.
Head of the benefit and risk department: Board of Healthcare Funders of Southern Africa (BHF).
Dr Rajesh Patel is currently head of the benefit and risk department at the Board of Healthcare Funders of Southern Africa (BHF).
Prior to that, he worked as a family physician from 1987 to 1995. After leaving private practice he joined the medical aid industry. His roles in the industry have included medical advisor, scheme manager and clinical risk manager. Prior to joining the BHF in 2005, he spent two and a half years in the pharmaceutical industry. His special interests are quality assurance, value-based medicine and the application of public health principles in health risk management in the private sector.
He is a member of the health data ministerial advisory committee. Prior to this, he was a non-executive director of the Council for Health Service Accreditation of Southern Africa (COHSASA) and Health Quality Assessment (HQA), as well as a former chairman of the clinical review committee of HQA.
Dr Brian Ruff is a physician, rheumatologist and health economist. He holds a MB BCh (Wits, 1983), FCP (SA, 2002) Rheumatology, D HM E FP (UCT, 2002) and CPMD (Wits, 2006).
He is CEO of Professional Provider Organisation Services (PPO Serve), a position he has held since March 2015. PPO Serve is a healthcare management service company that helps organise clinicians into their own branded commercial teams to provide explicit clinical products for patients. Fees are for teamwork and accountability – whether from schemes, the state or from individuals; fee-for-service is never used. Multidisciplinary integrated, accountable teams produce better quality at lower costs for patients and populations – it’s the key reform needed in South Africa right now.
PPO Serve’s methodology includes detailed risk assessment to match every patient with the intensity of service they need; it also uses clinical outcome data driven for constant system improvement. The team is provided with a tailored patient clinical workflow system, the Intelligent Care System, which supports their proactive work.
Until March 2015, he was head of strategy at Discovery Health. He managed various divisions including risk intelligence, which did innovative clinical data and case mix analytics, and the integrated care unit, which drove supply side reform. His work included the development of a macro-economic model of the private healthcare sector.
From 1996 to 1999, he headed up a technical task team for the Gauteng Department of Health’s provincial healthcare services during the transition between apartheid and the democratic period. The focus was on service reconfiguration to provide effective and equitable care for South Africans.
Before that he was a clinician at various public sector hospitals and at Alexandra Clinic. He also worked for a period for the NHS in London.
Dr Nomalungelo (Lungi) Nyathi is an executive director: health management at Medscheme. She holds an MB ChB and qualified as a medical doctor in 2003. She has worked extensively as a medical practitioner in both the private and public sectors. She originally joined Medscheme in 2010 and successfully led the GEMS managed care and Aid for Aids business units until 2015.
After that she provided strategic and clinical healthcare consulting to key role-players in the health sector. She returned to Medscheme in June 2016 and is now responsible for the ongoing development and enhancement of the health risk management strategy, new products and solutions, clinical and health risk thought leadership, as well as public health strategy.
Professor Helen Rees is a graduate of the Senior Executive Programme, Southern Africa, Harvard Business School and a member of the Royal College of General Practitioners, UK. In addition she is a doctor instructor for family planning, Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, UK, and holds a Diploma of Child Health from the South African Colleges of Medicine, a Diploma of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, UK, an MA Social and Political Sciences (CANTAB), Newhall College, Cambridge University, and an MB BChir (CANTAB), Newhall College, Cambridge University.
She is founder and executive director of the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, where she is also a personal professor of obstetrics and gynaecology. She is an honorary professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and an honorary fellow at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge University.
She has received many national and international awards for her contribution to African health and global health including being made an Officer of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II for her contribution to global health, and in 2016 being awarded one of the South Africa’s highest honours, the Order of the Baobab, for her contribution to HIV research and to the health of women and children. Her other awards include Lifetime and Gold awards for her distinguished contribution to science, society and women’s health by the South African Academy of Science, the South African Medical Association, the South African Department of Science and Technology and BHP Billiton.
She is internationally renowned for her research and policy work in reproductive health, HIV and vaccines, and has been the principal investigator on many HIV, STI and reproductive health clinical studies. She has over 200 peer-reviewed publications, to her name, has delivered over 200 plenary and keynote addresses, has chaired over 100 national and international scientific and policy committees, and served or chaired more than 100 conferences.
Professor Rees serves on many international scientific committees and boards. Among other positions, she is chair of World Health Organization’s (WHO) African Regional Immunisation Technical Advisory Group (RITAG) and its International Health Regulations (IHR) Emergency Committee on Polio.
Ishmael Mogapi has over 20 years of law enforcement and risk management experience obtained from roles in both the public and private sectors. He currently a senior manager: operations risk at the Government Employees Medical Scheme (GEMS), a medical scheme established to help public service employees and their families to get the best possible healthcare at the most affordable rate.
He holds a BIuris (Vista University), LLB (UNISA) and GMP (GIBS) along with other relevant functional certificates from some of the leading academic institutions in the country. Before joining GEMS, he held various strategic managerial positions in the health administration business, where he advised and coordinated the fraud risk management activities of several medical schemes.
Craig Getz is a consulting actuary with Insight Actuaries and Consultants. He is both a Fellow of the Actuarial Society of South Africa (FASSA) and a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries (FIA). He has consulted to a wide array of stakeholders across the healthcare sector. This includes medical schemes, managed care organisations, hospital groups and provider groupings. His expertise lies in the application of actuarial techniques to provide his clients with expert strategic advice.
He has a specific interest in product development, alternative reimbursement models, benchmarking and profiling, and the identification of fraud, waste and abuse. He has overseen the development of the Insight diagnosis related grouper (DRG), which is the most widely used DRG in South Africa. He has also overseen the development of a range of provider profiling tools and systems.
Carl de Montille is the head of stakeholder relations at Netcare 911. He is responsible for specific areas of claim management and adjudication processes, as well as service provider and network management.
In addition to managing aspects of claim management, he has played a critical role in the development and execution of emergency medical services (EMS), fraud identification and investigation, with a strong focus on Netcare 911’s clients and contracted medical schemes. During his extensive career over the past 20 years as an emergency care practitioner, he has gained a thorough knowledge of the operational principles and practices of professional EMS management systems and related EMS regulations. His experience in EMS management has given him the ability to identify unethical behaviour and business practices consistently to ensure that he has successfully limited financial fraud and patient mismanagement within the EMS environment for many clients.
As a result of his success, he has taken on a more active role within the industry as an advocate for ethical business and patient practices.
Dr Ali Hamdulay MB ChB (UCT), M Fam Med (Stellenbosch)(Cum Laude), is currently the CEO of Metropolitan Heath. He is also currently a director on the boards of Metropolitan Health, MMI Health and BHF.
He joined Metropolitan Health Risk Management as clinical advisor in the Clinical Best Practice Unit in 2007. In 2009, he was appointed executive manager: disease risk management and was responsible for the design and management of healthcare programmes such as the cardiovascular, diabetes, psychiatry, spinal, maternity and pathology programmes for the company. He successfully led the development and implementation of the integrated DRM wellness programmes. In 2010, he was appointed executive manager: provider networks to enhance Metropolitan Health Risk Management’s value-based clinical offering to members of medical schemes and employer groups by increasing access to quality care networks and by steering the integration of managed care programmes with providers of healthcare.
In 2012, he was appointed general manager of the Health Provider and Policy Unit to take on the challenge of ensuring that Metropolitan Health Risk Management is the leading provider of strategic health provider management and policy services and products in the industry. In this role, he also drove the development of accessibility, relevance and robustness of evidence-based clinical policy and advisory services.
He graduated as the top master’s student in family medicine at Stellenbosch University in 2008 and obtained a postgraduate certificate in health technology assessment during the same year. In 2010, he completed the Metropolitan Senior Leadership Programme at the UCT Graduate School of Business. He attended Harvard Business School in 2014, where he completed the Executive Education: Value Measurement for Health Care Programme presented by Professors Michael Porter and Michael Kaplan; this has further influenced his thinking on health outcomes models and value-based healthcare.
Dr Elton Dorkin holds the following qualifications: MB ChB (Natal), DOH (Wits) and MBA (GIBS). He is currently group chief medical officer of Illovo Sugar Africa (Pty) Ltd and a trustee of Momentum Health.
He is responsible for the healthcare operations of Illovo Sugar in six countries in southern and east Africa. He is a member-elected trustee to the Board of Momentum Health and member of its clinical governance committee.
He has previous experience at a strategic and operational level in health services delivery in the primary resources industry in multiple African countries. His past employers include AngloGold, AngloPlatinum, International SOS and EOH Health
Howard Stephens has been the chairman of the Nedgroup Medical Aid Scheme for six years and prior to that was a trustee for an extended period. Nedgroup was the proud recipient of the Titanium Award for Closed Schemes in 2017. During his tenure he has focused on his particular interests of wellness, managed care and high risk beneficiary management.
He was in banking for 42 years in a variety of financial and systems roles. Prior to his retirement he was chief procurement officer for Nedbank. He is passionate about matching cost-effectiveness with quality outcomes in a sustainable manner.
He is currently a director of BHF (SA) and their acting head of shared services.
Caroline Mbi-Njifor’s life purpose is to build up strong, functional families and marriages by equipping and empowering one woman at a time to stand up and stand firm.
She is the founder and CEO of EndlessLife, a front-runner in South Africa for the delivery of comprehensive and integrated health and social services at home. She is a businesswoman, who is completing her global executive MBA at the IE Business School of Madrid in Spain. She holds a specialised MBA in healthcare management from Luton University, a degree in sociology, a non-degree in psychology, a diploma in HIV management and a certificate in health risk management. She also has a diploma from the University of Johannesburg for entrepreneurship and qualified as a transformational leadership coach at the Transformational Leadership Institute South Africa. She is a member of the Institute of Health Risk Managers of South Africa, a member of the Case Manager Association SA and a member of the South African Council for Social Services Professions (SACSSP).
She has 14 years’ experience in management positions: six years in senior management and eight years in executive level management. Her experience and expertise include in-depth transformational leadership with multiple awards for great people leadership skills and high performing teams, strategic operations expertise, start-up skills, entrepreneurship, transformational coaching, and business strategy and operations, among many others.
She has worked and consulted with various private, public, and civil society entities as well as NGOs, including Shell SA, Air Liquide, Cisco Systems, ILO, the national Department of Transport, the national Department of Health, the Department of Public Services and Administration, HealthInsite, Futures Group and Palladium Group.
She has received multiple awards in her career as an independent director, businesswoman and for her leadership role as an executive. She has been a keynote speaker at several leadership, management and women’s conferences.
Barry Childs is joint CEO of Insight Actuaries & Consultants. He is a fellow of the Institute and Faculty of and member of the health and care board of the IFoA in the UK. He is the current chair of the healthcare committee of the Actuarial Society of South Africa and scrutineers the healthcare fellowship paper of the local health actuarial examinations. He has been involved in the local healthcare sector since 2000, consulting widely to providers and funders, and is passionate about improvements to the health system and access to care.
Abdullah Hassen Verachia is an admitted attorney and holds qualifications from leading academic institutions. He holds a bachelor’s in law and a master’s in management (cum laude). He has completed executive programmes on strategy and shared value, as well as competitiveness at Professor Michael Porter’s Institute of Strategy and Competitiveness, Harvard Business School, and on broadcast technology at Columbia Business School.
He serves as CEO of The Strategists, where he plays an active role in assisting companies and organisations craft competitive future strategies. He has significant expertise in strategy, competitiveness and sector trends and facilitates a number of high-level strategy sessions and breakaways for companies and governments. He led the team that crafted the 2017-2030 Gauteng Economic Development Strategy with the premier and executive council.
Having presented and consulted to leading listed firms, international organisations and governments in over 60 cities globally he has been recognised as a leading speaker, disruptor, strategist and thought leader on competitiveness and the interplay between strategy and disruptive innovation.
He has provided business strategy solutions on behalf of listed and multinational clients in Asia, Africa and Europe. He has also initiated and advised on some of the largest Asian investments into Africa. He has advised numerous South African companies on their internationalisation strategies with various emerging market economies.
He has headed up research, strategy and consulting assignments in an array of sectors including banking, mining, finance, asset management, construction, insurance, legal, audit, FMCG, telecoms, retail and automotive. He has headed up consulting assignments on behalf of a number of South African industrial development zones and investment promotion agencies. He has done work on behalf of leading donor organisations, specifically on the intra-emerging market flows between Asia and Africa.
He has also advised and engaged with a number of Indian companies entering Africa. He has participated in numerous high profile Asia-Africa initiatives, private meetings, conferences and delegations. He is a regular media commentator for a number of publications and has co-authored a book on the commercial corridor between Africa and India.
Gavin Steel is currently the chief director for sector wide procurement in the national Department of Health, where he manages the Essential Medicines Programme, pharmaceutical tenders, pharmacoeconomic evaluation, licensing and African traditional medicines units. To date he has served on various regulatory and advisories bodies including the Pricing Committee, MCC, Essential Medicines List Committee and the South African Pharmacy Council.
He has 24 years of experience in developing pharmaceutical systems to support rational medicines use. His technical areas of expertise include rational drug use, evidence-based medicine, medicines regulation, curriculum development, medicines safety, pharmaceutical care, clinical pharmacokinetics, pharmacoeconomics and adherence to long-term therapies. He has done extensive work in developing rational medicines services in a resource-constrained environment, both at a service delivery and academic level. Rational medicines use competencies include application of evidence-based medicine principles during selection, establishment and support of pharmacy and therapeutic committees, DURs, pharmacovigilance, medication error surveillance, medicine information systems and adherence improvement strategies. Experience gained from implementing the services is being used to formulate policies for improved access to medicines.
Dr Louis Rossouw holds a BCHD (Pretoria) and an Hons MCHD (Medunsa) cum laude. He was formerly an associate-professor at the University of Pretoria.
For two years, he was a member of a working group of the post-1994 election consultative forum under the national Department of Health for a national health policy. He is a consultant to SADC countries in the fields of epidemiology and health economics.
Since 2000, he has held the position of clinical director at the Institute for Health Economics and Technology Innovation, Cape Town. This is a privately funded healthcare initiative. Since 2016, he has also been a director at IHA.
Dr Kwinda Munyadziwa holds the following tertiary qualifications: Bachelor of Science (University of Venda), Bachelor of Medicine & Bachelor of Surgery (University of Natal), Master of Medicine in Family Medicine (University of Limpopo) and Master of Science in Medicine in Bioethics and Health Law (University of Witwatersrand). He is currently studying towards a Bachelor of Laws Degree (Second level) with University of South Africa (UNISA)
He started his career as an intern at Tshilidzini Hospital in Limpopo in 2002 before moving to Donald Fraser Hospital to perform community service. He was appointed as acting senior medical superintendent three months after completing his community service (a position he held for eight years) until he qualified as a specialist in family medicine and took up that position at Tshilidzini Hospital.
When the piloting of national health insurance started he was seconded by the MEC of Health in Limpopo to head the pilot project there and left that role when he joined the HPCSA as ombudsman in 2004, the position he still holds to date although there are different roles that he has played (in acting capacity) within the HPCSA.
He has been involved in different leadership roles at both a professional and community level, including: national councillor and board member (South African Medical Association), president of the Junior Doctors’ Association, chairperson of the Senior Hospital Doctors’ Association (interest groups of the South African Medical Association) and member and vice-chairperson of the Medical and Dental Professions Board (Health Professions Council of South Africa).
Dr Iain Barton is a leading expert in developing and implementing best practice supply chain functions in global health.
A committed South African, he is a medical doctor with 10 years clinical practice and 20 years in supply chain management. Dr Barton specialises in pharmaceutical supply chain solution design and market-shaping start-ups.
He is group strategy executive: healthcare for Imperial Logistics, coordinating operations across all of Imperial’s healthcare businesses. Imperial is Africa’s largest logistics company and its healthcare operations deliver more than 350 million patient packs of medicine each year.
Dr Barton was responsible for developing the concept of regional distribution centres to support the scale-up of PEPFAR, which provides life-saving drugs and commodities for more than six million HIV patients in 17 countries across Africa. Other innovations developed under his leadership include Unjani Clinics, Warehouse-in-a-Box, Clinic-in-a-Box and Lulama Pharmacies.
He currently serves on the advisory boards of Merck for Mothers, South Africa’s Public Health Enhancement Fund and People That Deliver.
Ogona Tshoswane graduated from the University College Dublin (UCD) in 1998 with a degree of Bachelor of Physiotherapy. He practiced as a physiotherapist for 13 years in hospitals and private practice before joining the Botswana Health Professions Council (BHPC) as the Registrar in 2011. He then joined the Non-Bank Financial Institutions Regulatory Authority (NBFIRA) in 2014 where he is responsible for the regulation and supervision of the Botswana insurance industry, including medical aid funds. In addition, he managed a project by Deloitte to develop the regulations for the medical aid industry in Botswana. He is currently a member of the Health Financing Strategy Technical Working Group (HFSTWG) which is developing a framework for the introduction of national health insurance (NHI) in Botswana.
Ogona has received management and leadership training from the University of Stellenbosch (Management Development Program) and the Pacific Institute (Investment in Excellence). He is a student member of the Chartered Secretaries of Southern Africa (CSSA).
Stephen Uanjengua-ije Tjiuoro holds the following qualifications: a postgraduate diploma in strategy and innovation from Oxford University, UK; a certificate programme in finance and accounting (Wits Business School – RSA); a bachelor of law degree (B Juris) from UNISA and a national diploma in police science from the Polytechnic of Namibia. He is currently pursuing an LLM degree through UNISA and having completed his coursework, he is now working on his dissertation.
He is currently the CEO of the Namibian Association of Medical Aid Funds (NAMAF). He assumed the position on 1 April 2017. He has overall responsibility for the leadership, management and performance of the functions of NAMAF, a juristic body created to control, promote, encourage and co-ordinate the establishment, development and functioning of medical aid funds in Namibia. Prior to this he worked as a public prosecutor, as principal assessment officer of the Motor Vehicle Accident Fund and subsequently also as its first chief operations officer and de facto CEO.
Dr Hleli Nhlapo qualified with a BChD from Medunsa in July 1991. He obtained a postgraduate diploma in forensic dentistry and an MSc Dent Sc (Forensic Dentistry) from Stellenbosch University in 1999 and 2002, respectively.
He is registered with the HPCSA as a general dental practitioner. He served as a director of Oralnet from 1998 until January 2005 and as an executive member of the South African Medical and Dental Practitioners’ Association (SAMDP) from 1996 to 2001.
He is currently the managing director of the medical schemes division of Dental Information Systems (Pty) Ltd (DENIS), a position he has held since January 2005. He is an executive at EOH’s health business unit and also serves as chairman of the HFMU within the BHF. He is a board member and director of the BHF.
He practised as a dental surgeon for 14 years before joining DENIS. He has attended various dental specialty postgraduate courses and received certificates. He has served as the dental advisor for Medscheme (1998-2004) and Managed Health Systems (2002-2004), and as a local area manager for Bankmed under MHS. He was part of the SAMDP yearly tariff increase negotiation team with the then RAMS and was also involved in the negotiations with the Dental Technicians Council that made it possible for dental technicians to claim directly from medical schemes. He has attended international conferences and facilitated sessions at the GHCAN on fraud, waste and abuse. He has spoken at the BHF conference on the latter subject at previous BHF conferences. He is an annual invitee of the University of the Western Cape’s dental faculty and speaks to final year students on the subject of private health funding in South Africa.
Dr Nkhohola Selina Ramatsoso is currently a specialist obstetrician/gynaecologist in private practice and director at The Birthing Team Johannesburg. Her prior work experience includes being a medical officer in obstetrics and gynaecology at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Hospital and a senior lecturer in obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of the Witwatersrand.
She holds an MB ChB from the Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine in KwaZulu-Natal and a diploma in obstetrics from the College of Medicine. She obtained her FCOG from the same institution in 2011.
She is a member of the Health Professions Council of South Africa, the South Africa Medical Association, the Medical Protection Society, the South African Society of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists and the College of Medicine of South Africa.
Dr Solly Motuba has been a consultant to various medical schemes and corporate entities on the rationalisation and structuring of health funds. He has served on a number of medical aid boards, in the capacity of a healthcare consultant or as a trustee. Dr Motuba previously served as principal officer of two medical schemes (one closed scheme and one self-administered open scheme) and as CEO of a third-party medical aid administrator. He has also worked as an executive in charge of a managed care organisation.
Dr Motuba co-founded Cure Day Clinics and Vmed medical aid administrators and is a former board member of BHF and Mamelodi Hospital.
Dr Motuba has the following qualifications: MB ChB (MEDUNSA), an MBA from the University of Pretoria and a digital marketing diploma from VEGA. In addition, he holds a diploma in financial management from Damelin as well as a certificate in administration of estates from UNISA. He also has accreditation as a Fellow of the Institute of Life and Pensions Advisors from the Financial Planning Institute of Southern Africa.
Dr Motuba still serves on several boards. Until recently, he was the head of private practice at the South African Medical Association. He is currently employed as an executive director at Metropolitan Health, in the capacity of chief commercial officer.
Lusani Mulaudzi is currently CEO of Grassroots Impact Solutions, a newly established level 1 BBBEE actuarial and strategy consultancy. His previous positions include being CEO of Allcare Health Administrators, a health actuary for Medscheme Administrators and an actuarial consultant for Sanlam.
He is a Fellow of the Actuarial Society of South Africa (FASSA) and holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Actuarial Science and a B Comm Honours (Actuarial Science) from Stellenbosch University,
In 2017, he presented at the Caribbean Actuarial Association Conference in Nassau, Bahamas and the previous year he presented at the Africa Actuarial Congress in Cape Town. He is currently president-elect of the Actuarial Society of South Africa and from 2009 to 2012, he was president of the Association of South African Black Actuarial Professionals.
Nqobile Khumalo is fixed income portfolio manager at Aluwani Capital Partners. As at 31 December 2017, Aluwani Capital Partners had a total of R54.3 billion worth of assets under management; of that, R51.3 billion is in fixed income funds actively managed by him and one other portfolio manager. The head of fixed income partners them in their respective portfolios. They are supported by a credit team that does the fundamental credit analysis and an in-house economist; this allows them great scope to discuss markets and global trends extensively.
He is ultimately responsible for the fund performance and the allocation of risk, giving client feedback and preparing monthly and quarterly reports. Speaking about markets and what drives them is part of his job description.
Prior to joining Aluwani Capital Partners, he was a fixed income analyst at Pan-African Asset Management, working under one of the most recognisable names in the South African fixed income space, Helen Masson, former CIO of the second largest pension fund in the country, Eskom Pension and Provident Fund.
Milani Wolmarans is chief director responsible for NHI information systems at the national Department of Health. She has a degree in occupational therapy from the University of Stellenbosch and a postgraduate diploma in health management from the University of Cape Town (UCT). She is currently enrolled for a master’s degree in development policy and practice at UCT.
She has over 30 years of health management experience in the public health sector, which has provided her with deep insight and understanding of how the health system works in South Africa. Although her expertise lies in the areas of public health planning and policy development, she has developed a specific interest in the use of heath information to inform planning and policy decision-making. Her current responsibilities include the development of information systems and tools for NHI. She is devoted to the testing and design of the enterprise architecture for the development of an integrated patient-based information system for South Africa.
Professor Morgan Chetty is a registered specialist family physician. He serves as deputy chairman of the SAMCC. He is the chairman of the IPA Foundation of South Africa and chairman of the KwaZulu-Natal Doctors Healthcare Coalition.
He was the associate professor and head of managed care and health services management of the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Nelson Mandela School of Medicine. He now serves as visiting professor to the Department of Research, Durban University of Technology.
He consults to pharmaceutical companies and medical schemes in South Africa. He writes regularly for Medical Chronicle and other journals when invited to do so.
He was awarded the Fellowship of Family Physicians by the College of Medicine of South Africa in 2013. He has written two books on managed care and is a regular speaker at national and international conferences. He served on the NHI Task Team.
Professor Chetty has received a number of awards for leadership in healthcare, including the Life Achievement Award for Quality in Healthcare (2018) and the BHF Titanium Award for Excellence (2017).
He was awarded the Fulbright-Humphrey scholarship to the USA in 1993-1994, where he completed his MPH. He serves on the advisory committee on partnering with patients of the International Society of Quality Assurance. He was appointed to the board of OHSC in February 2018 by the minister of health, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi.
He is mainly involved in quality in healthcare. He writes and speaks at numerous conferences on the subject. His appointment to OHSC is testament to his knowledge and work.
He is a leading promoter of patient-centred care (PCC). He presented on the subject at the International Society of Quality Assurance’s London Conference. He has written numerous articles on PCC, its impact on quality and cost and methods to measure PCC programmes.
Dr Skhumbuzo Ngozwana is an international expert on the African pharmaceutical industry, who has served as a consultant to the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the United States Pharmacopeia Convention (USP), among others. As the international lead consultant for UNIDO, Dr Ngozwana co-authored the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plan for Africa that was adopted by the African Union heads of state in 2012. The plan was the outcome of the extensive research and analytical work he conducted on the African pharmaceutical industry. His recent UN assignment was as part of an expert team of three appointed to develop the Ethiopian Pharmaceutical Sector Strategy and Action Plan. This document was adopted by the Ethiopian government as a blueprint for developing the Ethiopian sector and is now incorporated into the Ethiopian Growth and Transformation Plan II. His last assignment with UNIDO involved the development of Ghana’s Pharmaceutical Sector Development Strategy.
He is currently the founder, president and chief executive officer of Kiara Health, and chairman of the board of directors of Biovac (a South African vaccine manufacturer – and a public private partnership).
Prior to his consulting career, he worked for Cipla Medpro as its deputy chief executive officer. He is passionate about the development of the African pharmaceutical industry and access to quality-assured medicines on the continent.
As a thought leader, he has been invited to share his extensive knowledge on diverse topics on African pharma at leading local and international pharmaceutical and public healthcare conferences and key stakeholder engagement platforms.
John Fagan, an Irish South African, came to South Africa in 1983. He has spent his entire career in healthcare, beginning in nursing and behaviour modification, and thereafter as a pharmaceutical executive. He is an aspiring healthcare ‘factivist’, who believes strongly that to overcome our health challenges, our views and future actions have to be based on evidence and facts.
His health and pharmaceutical experience spans three decades, the majority of that time spent as GM of Sanofi. He served as chairman of various pharmaceutical associations and was also a member of two ministerial health task teams. The future common cause he wishes to serve focuses on creating patient access to affordable innovative medicines.
Ntefeleng Nene is a public health specialist with over 10 years of experience in the public health sector. She holds a Master’s in Public Health Law.
She is currently a senior manager at Accenture South Africa and leads the public health portfolio. She previously worked as a senior technical advisor at Management Sciences for Health. Her responsibilities included capacitating provincial departments of health to strengthen health systems through a leadership development programme. During this time she also provided technical assistance on governance to the national Department of Health: Affordable Medicines Directorate.
Between 2015 and 2016, she served as a guest lecturer on the Leadership Development Programme at Sefako Makgatho University (formerly MEDUNSA) for MPharm in Public Health Pharmacy and Management. She also contributed to the integration of the Leadership Development Programme into the curriculum for MPharm in Public Health Pharmacy and Management at Sefako Makgatho University.
She is a member of Public Health Association of South Africa and is passionate about using technology to strengthen health systems for better health outcomes.
Advocate Andy Mothibi started his career as public prosecutor in the Magistrate’s and Regional Courts. He also served on the bench as a magistrate in the Johannesburg and Soweto Magistrate’s Courts. He was appointed head: employee relations at the then Department of Finance in 1995. He was part of the project that led to the establishment of the South African Revenue Service (SARS). At SARS he also served as head of corporate legal services and head of governance. In 2005 he was appointed head of compliance at South African Airways (SAA). After completing the implementation of SAA’s enterprise and compliance risk management framework, he was appointed senior manager: enterprise risk management at Nedbank in 2007.
Within six months he became general manager: group operational risk management. After successfully completing the implementation of the Basel II Operational Risk Management Framework (Basel II ORMF), in 2012 he was appointed head of operational risk for Standard Bank of South Africa. After successful implementation of Basel II ORMF there he became head: Standard Bank group operational risk management. Basel II ORMF implementation entailed assessing operational risks, which included the development of anti-fraud and anti-money laundering scenarios.
In October 2013 he was appointed as an executive director at Medscheme Holdings, a subsidiary of AfroCentric Health. His role at Medscheme was equivalent to that of a chief risk officer, which provided for wider career growth. The role included leading group legal services, governance, risk and compliance. He was also responsible for the Medscheme Road Accident Fund business unit. At AfroCentric Group he championed the successful implementation of the AfroCentric enterprise risk management framework. One of the key initiatives was the reorganisation of the group forensic investigations business unit, which improved forensic investigations capability and recoveries. On 1 May 2016, he was appointed head of the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) by the president of South Africa.
Bright Kamanga is the current chairman of the BHF SADC committee. He is co-owner and CEO of the second-largest medical aid and administration company in Malawi, MedHealth Limited. He was the pioneer CEO of Momentum Health in Malawi, which was later rebranded as Metropolitan following the merger of South African giants, Momentum and Metropolitan, as MMI. He managed these brands from 2009 until 2017 when he successfully negotiated a takeover and rebranding as MedHealth. He is a chartered accountant with over 25 years’ experience in executive and consultancy positions in health and other disciplines, with the last 10 years in the medical aid environment.
Dr Guni Goolab graduated with a MB ChB from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1985. He later completed an MBA with the University of Cape Town. He joined the Government Employees Medical Scheme (GEMS) as principal officer in August 2013. GEMS is the largest closed scheme in the country and the second-largest medical scheme in South Africa overall.
Having led a multinational healthcare company for close on a decade, Dr Goolab has extensive executive experience, which is augmented by sound public and private healthcare understanding garnered over three decades. Under the aegis of Dr Goolab, AstraZeneca was one of the fastest growing pharmaceutical companies in South Africa. During his tenure, three flagship products were launched, each featuring among the top 10 pharmaceutical brands in the country. Between 2008 and 2013 he was responsible for leading the expansion of AstraZeneca into sub-Saharan Africa, with a particular focus on Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and Angola.
During his career he has been extensively involved in the South African healthcare industry. In recognition of the pivotal role he played, he was appointed president of the Pharmaceutical Industry Association of South Africa from 2004 to 2006. Other prominent roles within the private healthcare sector include his participation in the BEE Working Group of PIASA. He is a past executive member of the Private Health Forum. He currently also serves as a director of the Board of Healthcare Funders.
Notable successes during his tenure at GEMS include the following. The scheme’s financial position has strengthened considerably, achieving reserves of R5.4 billion and a reserve ratio of 15.17%. He leads the claims management programme, which focuses on underwriting, hospital admission tracking and fraud, waste and abuse.
He was instrumental in the development and introduction of the Emerald Value option aligned to primary healthcare as the heartbeat of NHI and the expansion of the CLO unit services to seven provinces. He also places a strong focus on stakeholder engagements.
Stephen Mmatli is the general manager of the compliance & investigations unit at the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS), where his team of investigators and compliance officers perform compliance audits and investigate allegations of misuse of medical scheme funds or contraventions of the Medical Schemes Act.
In this position, he has led a number of high-profile fraud investigations in the medical schemes sector and has also pioneered the use of routine inspections as a method of monitoring compliance. Prior to his current position, he worked as a senior legal advisor/secretariat to the council in the legal services unit of the CMS. He previously practised as an attorney at Deneys Reitz Attorneys (now Norton Rose Attorneys). He holds LLB and LLM degrees.
Ashika Lucken is currently the senior state advocate in the Specialised Commercial Crime Unit (Durban) of the National Prosecuting Authority. She obtained a BA (Law) and a B Laws from the University of Durban. She has a right of appearance in the High Court.
From September 2004, when she was appointed as senior state advocate, she has prosecuted a vast number of complex commercial crime cases and guided investigations in such cases. In addition, she advises, assists and trains South African Police Service (SAPS) investigators and other stakeholders in complex commercial crime cases. She has spent time at the Department of Justice as a prosecutor in the District, Regional and Reception Courts. Throughout her career, she has received many merit awards.
Pieter Dorfling holds a B Com and a B Com (Hons) in investment management, both from the former RAU (currently University of Johannesburg). He is currently director: new business at Universal Healthcare Group. He identifies new business opportunities in the schemes environment, and structures and develops healthcare solutions for corporate employer groups.
He drafted the original business plan submitted to the Council for Medical Schemes and the Health Professions Council of South Africa to obtain approval for the Medicross business concept to become an integrated provider delivery system. He negotiated with general practitioners to incorporate their acquired practices into Medicross facilities. Ultimately, approximately 265 general and dental practitioner practices were incorporated into Medicross facilities. He was involved in setting up and establishing the managed care companies, MSO (Pty) Ltd and OCSA (Pty) Ltd, while at Medicross.
He was part of the executive management team that raised R450 million to capitalise Netpartner Investments Limited via a private placement of shares to more than 4000 general practitioners and 2200 specialists, who became investors in Netpartner. He was also responsible for negotiating the successful purchase of Medscheme Limited by Netpartner, further to which he had overall responsibility for managed healthcare services rendered to all Medscheme managed care clients.
Dr Rajesh Narwal is the health systems advisor at the World Health Organization country office for South Africa. His current work is focused on strengthening health policies and governance, integrated people-centred service delivery and health intelligence aimed at promoting universal health coverage in South Africa.
In the past, Dr Narwal has worked at leadership positions with the WHO and Ministry of Health in India, Medical Emergency Relief International (UK), Centers for Disease Control (USA) and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, leading work on health systems strengthening, health policy and research, conceptualisation and management of ingenious public health, emergency and development programmes in South Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
Dr Narwal is a medical doctor and earned his master’s degree in public health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Dr Mpho Rabada holds an MB BCH (Wits) and an MBA (Surrey University); he is experienced in aviation medicine, project management and healthcare management. He is currently managing director of SWIPA Solutions, a management advisory services company. He also serves as chairperson of the Certification Committee for Occupational Lung Diseases at the MBOD under the ODWA act.
His previous work experience includes being a GP in private practice, and senior managerial roles in the public sectors of both South Africa and the UK He has also served on the Mining Occupational Health Council and the Health Policy Council.
Duncan Thela is currently managing director of Associated Fund Administrators Botswana (Pty) Ltd (AFA), the largest independent medical aid administrator in Botswana, covering approximately 215 000 lives or around 10% of Botswana’s population.
He holds a Bachelor of Pharmacy from the University of Nottingham (UK), further to which he registered with the then Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. He also holds a MBA from the University of Botswana.
He has than 30 years’ experience in the healthcare industry (public and private) covering hospital pharmacy, pharmaceutical manufacturing and wholesale, retail/community pharmacy, health programme/system development and management, managed care, medical aid administration, regulation (both drug and health professionals) and executive management.
Since 2001 he has been working in the medical aid industry in Botswana, initially as managed care advisor, chief operations officer and from 2013 as managing director of Associated Fund Administrators Botswana (Pty) Ltd. He has an interest in health system programme development/design and is currently part of the Technical Working Group on the Botswana National Health Financing Strategy and chairman of the Botswana Medicine Regulatory Authority Board.