Nigel is an SMME and regional development expert with 30 years experience in the South African public sector and in various research and development organisations. He joined EDSE from the Department of Trade and Industry  where, as Chief Director for African Industrial Development, he was actively involved in the regional integration, industrialisation and development agenda and in agro-processing opportunities. He also managed a research programme into regional value-chains, pursued investment opportunities across the continent and initiated work on the 4th Industrial Revolution.  Nigel’s earlier career included posts with the Overseas Development Agency (in London), the Western Cape’s Department of Economic Development and the investment promotion agency, Wesgro. He was instrumental in the establishment and management of cluster development agencies and other innovative projects, including the Cape Town Film Studios, the GreenCape Initiative, the Saldanha IDZ, the Learning Cape Initiative and the Atlantis Green Manufacturing Zone.  Nigel has a Masters in Economics from the University of London and Economics degrees from Stellenbosch.

A highly experienced southern African and continental expert with over 30 years experience, Daniel has worked on many private sector development programmes, leading project life cycle management and administration teams in Angola, Botswana, Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. In so doing, Daniel has a nuanced understanding of the political economy of trade development and value chain analysis. As Senior Non-Key SMME Programme Planning and Management Expert for the EDSE Programme, he focuses on strengthening stakeholder ownership through building the planning, implementation, management, monitoring and reporting capacities of the Programme’s implementing partners. Daniel was the team-leader for the design of the EDSE Programme.   Daniel is passionate about the agenda for employment creation through value chain development, SMMEs financing, and support for the reduction of red tape, SMME related research and capacity-building measures. He has demonstrated expertise in analysing the economic impact and job creation potentials of development programmes having carried out various consulting programmes for governments, private sector, regional economic communities and international organisations.

Patricia has 28 years of policy and practical experience, working on various socio-economic developmental issues across sub-Saharan Africa with governments, bilateral and multilateral organisations, and non-governmental development organizations. Her experience spans agriculture and enterprise development, agribusiness linkages, market systems and value chain analysis and development, food and nutrition security, evidence-based public policy making, grants management, and partnership development and management.   Patricia leads EDSE’s agri-sector team in improving the competitiveness of agribusiness SMMEs in South Africa, focussing on public and private sector partnership arrangements.  Patricia was most recently the Senior Regional Development Assistance Specialist for USAID’s Southern Africa Regional Mission, having managed the US government’s Feed the Future Initiative in the Southern African region for five years. She has worked for the Government of Zimbabwe, consulted for the SADC Secretariat and UN agencies. Patricia has an Honours degree in Agriculture from University of Zimbabwe, a Masters’ degree in Agricultural Economics (with distinction) from the University of London and is a PhD candidate in Rural Development Planning with the University of Pretoria.

Chido has worked for The Palladium Group for 10 years in various capacities on a number of projects. He has considerable experience in Financial Operations, Project Management and Stakeholder Relations. Chido has a BCom in Econometrics, B Com (Hons) Risk Management and is a certified PRINCE 2 practitioner.

Jennifer has extensive experience in Botswana and South Africa, and in the wider region, in the food safety sector in developing food safety management systems and policies.  She has represented both the Botswana and South Africa governments at the specialist committees of the Codex Alimentarius Commission and the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Committee of the World Trade Organization.  She was also appointed, in her personal capacity, as the developing country representative responsible for food safety on the working group and policy committee of the Standards and Trade Development Facility – jointly established by the FAO, the World Organization for Animal Health, the World Bank and the WTO. Over the past 10 years she has worked on regional SPS projects in SADC and COMESA to facilitate intra-regional trade, with a particular emphasis on improving market access by removing standards-related barriers to trade faced by small-scale agriculture producers and identifying the real SPS-related costs in cross-border trade. Jennifer has an MSc degree in chemistry from Salford University and a BSc degree in biology and chemistry from Keele University.

Thati is an agribusiness development specialist with over 19 years experience in agribusiness research, development and project management consultancy spread across the public sector (14 years) and the private sector (five years). His agri-business linkages work for the EDSE Programme has four components: facilitating activities to improve the competitiveness of Agri SMMEs by improving access to BDS and promoting inclusion in supply chains of large multinational / local corporations, government and state-owned enterprises; designing an institutional assessment for the Department of Agriculture Land Reform and Rural Development to identify pathways for effective delivery of BDS; working with relevant state entities and private sector companies to identify agribusiness opportunities for funding through SEFA, the provision of BDS by SEDA and/or DALRRD and linking agri SMMEs to corporate supply chains; facilitating a participatory review and implementation of the Integrated Cooperative Strategy which will be led by the DSBD. Thati is an Agricultural Economist with honours in Agricultural Economics from University of Limpopo. He also possesses an MBA from Management College of Southern Africa (MANCOSA). Thati spent his earlier professional career at Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development and the KwaZulu Natal Department of Agriculture.

Vusi has more than 20 years experience covering various aspects of Business Development Service, SMME development, regulatory and transformation issues, access to finance and impact assessment.  He has worked on numerous SMME support programmes and business development services in South Africa, in particular in Gauteng (Soweto, Alexandra and Tshwane) and has held senior positions in various sectors, including the tourism industry.  Vusi has been involved in supplier development programmes through a private sector initiative and has undertaken various BEE consulting projects. He has also run his own consulting business on SMME and business development services work.

Phozisa Mkele is a seasoned public relations specialist. She has experience is in communication strategy development, content development, media relations and digital media strategy development. Phozisa has a Corporate Communication degree from the University of Johannesburg and two Honours degrees from Wits in Journalism and English Literature – Creative Writing. She is working toward the completion of her Masters in 2019. In her previous positions she has worked as PR Manager for Regenesys Business School where she managed two PR agencies and a team of four. Here she conceptualized strategies for campaigns, managed high profile events and produced content for the business school. At Sun International she worked as Head of Events and Entertainment for the Group, with a strong focus toward profiling the Sun City resort domestically and within the African continent.

Since she started consulting Phozisa has worked on content production for the City of Johannesburg’s and its entities namely City Power, Department of Economic Development and Group Strategy, Policy Co-ordination and Relations departments. Phozisa has also consulted for SALGA’s Innovation and Knowledge Management unit providing content production services. Most recently she has consulted for the University of Johannesburg Centre for Entrepreneurship, National Empowerment Fund, Barloworld Group, MTN Group Africa, International Finance Corporation (IFC), Accenture and the UNDP’s YAS portal.

Richard’s lengthy career started in journalism (with the Pretoria News) after which he worked in the public policy research environment (at Rhodes University, the Centre for Policy Studies and the Human Sciences Research Council).  Over the last 15 years, Richard has worked on innovative African virtual policy networks (the Southern African Regional Poverty Network, ANSA-Africa) and two important African trade and regional integration initiatives (TradeMark Southern Africa and the Trade Law Centre). His work for these agencies involved the sourcing of policy-relevant content for distribution to policy specialists in governments, development agencies, civil society and academia.

Denver has worked in the banking industry for over 25 years, most of which has been in SME-focussed roles,  including enterprise and supplier development,  SME guarantee schemes and alternative funds.  Before joining the EDSE Programme team, Denver spent the last four years as the Vice President: Public Sector Enterprise and Supplier Development at Absa Corporate and Investment Bank.  The key responsibilities of this role included the negotiation and structuring of bespoke wholesale SME Finance solutions for public sector institutions and their SME suppliers, managing SME finance programmes by providing input for SME funding requests,  assisting with post-lending (investment) management and adhoc mentoring of SMEs.  Denver holds a Bachelors in Industrial Psychology as well as an MBA from Henley Business School. His dissertation topic was “ Black SME Financing and Enterprise and Supplier Development: catalysts for social innovation in the South African banking sector”.