GSDPP Senior Fellow Trevor Manuel appointed UCT Honorary Professor
As GSDPP Senior Fellow, Mr. Manuel has made an invaluable contribution to the training and academic programmes of the school.
GSDPP Director, Professor Alan Hirsch, said that Mr. Manuel’s stellar reputation and career in public service and as a high-ranking government minister has enriched the work of the school and has given GSDPP programme participants an insight into the rewards and challenges of top leadership.
“He brings to the school a wealth of experience that’s really relevant to our programmes,” said Prof Hirsch. “He’s got amazing international networks because he is so highly regarded. And he has very sharp strategic insights that will help with our development as a school.”
At the launch of GSDPP’s Leading in Public Life course, Mr. Manuel urged participants to base their leadership on "integrity, honesty and a commitment to serve".
"Leaders must be able to listen, share and persuade. Strong leaders are confident in their being. You must understand the nature of risks, but unless you're prepared to take risks you might as well stay in university doing course after course on leadership," Mr. Manuel said.
The course was part of GSDPP’s Building Bridges programme, which aims to bring together influential African leaders to deepen understanding around key challenges facing the continent and to seek solutions to contemporary problems.
Mr. Manuel has had a distinguished career in public service, including as one of South Africa (and the world’s) longest-serving Ministers of Finance. During this tenure in government, he also served as Minister in the Presidency and as head of the National Planning Commission. Before 1994, Mr. Manuel was a stalwart of the anti-apartheid movement and an activist.
He is currently a senior advisor to the Rothschild Group and Deputy Chairperson of Rothschild SA. Among many international posts, he has chaired the International Monetary Fund’s Development Committee, served as Special Envoy for Development Finance for UN Secretaries-General Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-Moon, and served on the Commission for Africa and the task team on Global Public Goods. In 2011 he became a Co-chair of the Transitional Committee of the Green Climate Fund, a UN fund to help poorer nations combat and adapt to climate change. Mr Manuel has received numerous honorary doctorates and awards, being named Africa Finance Minister of the Year in 2007.
Former Reserve Bank governor, Tito Mboweni, has also been appointed as an honorary professor at the School of Economic and Business Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand.