Alan Hirsch

Alan Hirsch was born in Cape Town and educated in South Africa and the US, with degrees in Economics, Economic History and History from UCT, Wits and Columbia University. He also trained at Georgetown University, and was a visiting scholar at the Harvard Business School.

He worked as an Economics Lecturer and Economic Policy Research Director at the University of Cape Town from 1984 to 1986 and from 1989 to 1995.

Hirsch joined the dti as Chief Director, Industry and Technology Strategy in 1995. In 1999, after spending a year at Harvard, he returned to the post of Chief Director, Business Regulation and Consumer Services in the dti. In 2000 he was appointed Deputy Chief Economist of the dti and Strategic Advisor on New Economy Policy and was later asked to manage the information and communication technology industrial cluster at the dti. In October 2002 he joined the Presidency as Chief Economist, Policy Co-ordination and Advisory Services (PCAS). In 2009 Alan Hirsch was appointed as the Deputy Director General of PCAS.

Hirsch developed, restructured and managed a wide range of projects and programmes at the dti, initiating or modifying many of the supply-side measures and investment incentives operating since the mid-1990s. He also helped to establish several new institutions such as TIPS, Investment South Africa, the Micro-Finance Regulatory Council and the ICT Development Council.

Hirsch has been or remains a member of the board of many institutions, including the Industrial Development Corporation, the State Tender Board, the National Training Board, the ISETT SETA, the National Advisory Council on Innovation, the Meraka Open Source Centre, and Denel, and was founding chairperson of the Trade and Industry Policy Secretariat (now TIPS), and of Investment South Africa (now TISA).

He has published widely on trade and industry policy issues and recently published the book: Season of Hope - Economic Reform under Mandela and Mbeki.