Palesa Moitse is a Senior Specialist International Trade at the South African Revenue Service. She was previously Director Trade Remedies at the Internation Trade Administration Commission (ITAC). She has more than 15 years’ experience in trade policy formulation, legal drafting and the implementation of trade rules. This work has included multilateral WTO negotiations and committee work, regional trade negotiations and bilateral trade agreements. She was the lead negotiator for the Trade Facilitation Negotiation that was adopted in Bali December 2013. Her academic background is BA in Law and LLB from the National University of Lesotho and an LLM in Banking…

Tshediso Matona has been the Secretary of Planning in the National Planning Commission in the Presidency, South African Government, since September 2015. He was the Chief Executive of power utility Eskom from October 2014 to May 2015. He was previously, from January 2011, the Director-General (DG) of Public Enterprises. Prior to that, he was DG of Trade and Industry from 2005 to 2010. An economist by training and an experienced executive in the public sector, he has held several senior positions in government throughout his career, and served as a trade diplomat at the SA Embassy to United Nations and World…

Garth Strachan is Acting CEO of the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS). Before that he was Deputy Director-General: Industrial Development Policy at the Department of Trade and Industry. He is an Executive Member of the Minister of Science's National Advisory Council on Innovation. He has a Masters Degree in Public Finance from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He held various positions in the Provincial Parliament and Provincial Government, Western Cape, including MEC Finance and Economic Development. Garth worked for the ANC in exile between 1976 and 1990.

Jorge Maia holds a Master of Arts degree in Economics from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada.  This academic qualification was preceded by a Bachelor of Economic Science with Honours from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Mr Maia joined the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa Limited (the IDC) in 1995 as a Manager in the Department of Economic Research and Development.  He was mainly responsible for the Department's macroeconomic and international economics sections, as well as for policy-related research pertaining to the SADC region.  In mid-1999, Mr Maia was appointed to the position of Senior…

Rudi Dicks has been in the trade union movement for most of his life. He held the position of Executive Director of the National Labour and Economic Development Institute (NALEDI) for four years, up until 2013, and is now with the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation in the Presidency as an Outcome Facilitator for Employment and Inclusive Growth. He was a member of the Management Committee, Executive Council, Labour Market Chamber, Demarcation Committee and S77 Standing Committee at NEDLAC. He currently serves on the Advisory committee of the Jobs Fund and the Employment, Income Distribution and Inclusive Growth Research Initiative. Prior to…

Imraan Patel is a public policy and strategy manager with a focus on innovation, sustainability, social and economic development, and public management and governance. Employed since 2006 at the South African Department of Science and Technology, he holds the position of Deputy Director-General: Socio-Economic Partnerships and represents the department on the social and economic clusters of government and the advisory committee for the Green Fund. He is also a member of the board of the Water Research Commission and the Southern African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management.  Areas of focus include Information and Communications Technologies,…

Saul has a Masters Degree in Industrial Sociology from the University of Witwatersrand, with his thesis on small business development. He was previously a chief director in the Economic Development Department (EDD) with oversight of the Development Finance Institutions reporting to EDD, including the Industrial Development Corporation and the Small Enterprise Finance Agency. As part of his responsibilities he oversaw the merger of the small business finance entities and ran several projects to support small business development.  He also worked as the chief of staff for Lindiwe Hendricks, heading her office while she was Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry…