Executive Directors
John Critien - Executive Director: Properties and Services | Miriam Hoosain - Executive Director: Human Resources | Moonira Khan - Executive Director: Student Affairs | Gerda Kruger - Executive Director: Communication and Marketing | Dr Jim McNamara - Executive Director - Alumni and Development | Dr Marilet Sienaert - Executive Director: Research | Gwenda Thomas - Executive Director: University Libraries | Professor Enrico Uliana - Executive Director: Finance | Izak Janse van Rensburg - Executive Director: Information and Communication Technology
John Critien
Executive Director: Properties and Services
John Critien joined UCT after 10 years as director of administration at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal.
He holds a similar portfolio in his current position as executive director: properties and services.
Managing change is one of his strengths, backed with a management diploma from the Commission for Administration.
Critien also spent 15 years serving the townships of Kwa-Zulu Natal. His focus was township building, development and maintenance, where administration, negotiation and people-skills were always a priority. During this time he obtained a diploma in industrial relations.
Miriam Hoosain
Executive Director: Human Resources
Miriam Hoosain was appointed as executive director: Human Resources from 1 January 2011.
Hoosain has 11 years of experience in management and human resources at UCT. She started in the university's HR Department in 1999, when she was employed as an employment equity officer. She rose steadily up the ranks over the years and served as senior HR advisor to the Faculty of Health Sciences after June 2004.
In August 2010 she took over as acting executive director of HR.
Before moving into the field of human resources, Hoosain worked as a scientist at the Centre for Epidemiological Research in the Medical Research Council, as a researcher for the Gender Equity Unit and as a lecturer in the Psychology Department at the University of the Western Cape. She also worked as a researcher in the New York Psychiatric Institute in the US.
Moonira Khan
Executive Director: Student Affairs
Moonira Khan was appointed to the newly created position of executive director: student development and support services in March 2005.
Khan is responsible for the student body of UCT, which totals about
Her key focus is providing a responsive and progressive student-centered support service for the students of UCT. Her objective is to develop each student into a well-rounded individual who will make a significant contribution to society.
Prior to her UCT appointment she was the first director of human resource development in the provincial Department of Health in the Western Cape, with a staff of
In 2000 she was appointed as the first chairperson of the board of the Health and Welfare Sector Education Training Authority (HWSETA). She played a significant role in providing leadership in establishing the HWSETA, which today has become a fully functional organisation that is actively engaged in skills development in the health and social development sectors.
Khan has a master's degree in adult education from UCT, bachelor's and honours degrees in administration and education from UNISA, and a postgraduate qualification from UCT through the Oliver Tambo Fellowship, as well as several professional qualifications in general nursing, midwifery, psychiatry, community health and neonatology.
She has also obtained qualifications from UWC (SA), Emory University / Centre for Disease Control (USA), ILO (ITC) (Italy), and Wits / Harvard Business Schools (SA / USA).
Moonira is presently studying towards a doctoral degree (public administration and development management) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal's School of Government.
Gerda Kruger
Executive Director: Communication and Marketing
Gerda Kruger is responsible for developing, implementing and monitoring professional and strategic communication and marketing across UCT and to all stakeholders to ensure the appropriate positioning of the university in South Africa and internationally.
She holds a BA (Hons) in psychology and a national higher education diploma from the Rand Afrikaans University. She has a Master's degree from UCT.
Kruger spent most of her working career as a journalist for Nasionale Pers and later Independent Newspapers.
She joined AngloGold as a senior communications officer and in 1999 joined UCT as the director of communications.
She was later appointed as executive director of communications and marketing.
Dr Jim McNamara
Executive Director - Alumni and Development
Dr McNamara was appointed executive director, Development and Alumni Department (DAD) in 2006. He had joined UCT in 1991 as senior lecturer in Asian religions in the Department of Religious Studies, but moved in 1992 to become UCT director of student housing, with the overall responsibility for the University's student housing programme for some 4,000 students in 21 residences.
He then moved on in 1997 to the position of deputy project manager for PRISM (Project to Revolutionise Information Systems and Management), in which he shared overall responsibility for the effective running of the project for implementing the SAP financial accounting and HR/payroll information system at UCT.
From 1999 he served as UCT deputy registrar for academic administration and the project director of ISIS (Integrated Student Information System, to implement the Oracle PeopleSoft / RMS / ImageNow student systems), until his appointment to his current position.
With a PhD in religious studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), McNamara spent 10 years as deputy director of the Alumni Association at that same university before his move to Cape Town. His MA was also from UCSB, and his BA from Georgetown University.
McNamara's current portfolio includes fundraising from foundations, corporations, individuals, and trusts, and the building of strong relations with the community of some 80,000 UCT alumni and friends throughout the world.
In this regard, he also holds management responsibility for the work of the staff at the UCT Fund Inc in the USA, the UCT Foundation in Canada, the UCT Trust in the UK, and from 2011, an office in Australia. These are legally separate organisations, but their staffing and operations are funded by the DAD at UCT.
Dr Marilet Sienaert
Executive Director: Research
Dr Marilet Sienaert completed a PhD in Literary Studies at the former University of Natal (Durban) and worked at the universities of Pretoria, Natal (Durban) and Durban-Westville from 1977 to 2000.
Moving through the ranks from lecturer to full professor during this time, her own academic work and on-going involvement in institutional research development projects led to a growing interest in higher education research management and a career change in 2000, when she was appointed to UCT as head of the then Grants Office.
Her experience as an academic stood her in good stead as her role, and that of the office, continued to evolve in response to rapid changes in the higher education environment. A number of donor-funded grants were obtained to enhance the Office's support and management capacity, resulting in a range of initiatives that were subsequently mainstreamed into central university operations. These included improved information management, strategic research planning and implementation as well as a 'framework of support' based on a series of staff development interventions for researchers at different phases of their research careers. Known as the Research Office since 2003, this entity is furthermore responsible for all pre-award processes related to grants; benchmarking; reporting; quality assurance; research internationalisation and the brokering of collaborative partnerships.
As Executive Director, Sienaert's mandate covers the activities of the Research Office; the Office of Research Integrity; the Directorate of Postgraduate Studies. She works closely with the cluster of research committees as well as the Deputy Vice Chancellor for research, to develop and implement the institutional research strategy and to position UCT optimally in relation to on-going challenges and opportunities in the national and international research and policy environment.
An active member of the South African Research & Innovation Management Association (SARIMA) and the International Organisation for Research Management Societies (INORMS), Sienaert has delivered many papers at a range of national and international conferences on research management. She has also served as panel member on the Council for Higher Education's national quality assurance audits of universities and on reference groups of the National Research Foundation.
Gwenda Thomas
Executive Director: University Libraries
Gwenda Thomas took office as executive director, UCT Libraries on 1 November 2011 after five years as director of the Library Services Division at Rhodes University, In her position, Thomas contributes to the strategic vision for the provision of academic information services at UCT. She is responsible for UCT Libraries, a system consisting of the Main Library (Chancellor Oppenheimer), seven branches among which are the Law and Medical Libraries and several special collections, including the African Studies Libraries and Manuscripts and Archives.
Prior to her position at Rhodes, she held the position of general manager and director in a higher education and library consortium, Foundation of Tertiary Institutions of the Northern Metropolis (FOTIM), comprising 11 institutional and library members across three provinces, namely, Gauteng, Limpopo and North West.
For the greater part of her professional career, Ms Thomas held senior management positions in the Department of Library Services at UNISA in different capacities between 1990-2000. At international level, she is the elected representative for the Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) region at the Online Computer Library Centre (OCLC) Global Council (2008-2011) and is currently the Chair for the EMEA Regional Council (July 2010 - June 2011).
Professor Enrico Uliana
Executive Director: Finance
Professor Uliana is the executive director of finance. Formerly he was head of the Department of Accounting.
He serves on numerous university and faculty committees. He has taught and administered courses from second year through to postgraduate level within the broader accounting disciplines and has taught and designed executive courses. He also serves as external examiner mostly at postgraduate and professional level for the University of Natal, University of Stellenbosch, Rhodes University, UNISA, University of Botswana, University of the Witwatersrand and Strathclyde University Glasgow.
Uliana has consulted widely in the areas of management accounting, finance and strategy to listed companies in South Africa and overseas. He is also director of several companies including the Sports Science Institute of South Africa. He provides expert opinion in legal disputes and also sits on the review panel for the King Commission into corporate governance in South Africa.
A National Research Foundation (NRF) rated researcher, Uliana has published over 60 papers internationally in scholarly and professional journals. He is the editor of SA Journal of Accounting Research and serves on the editorial board of Meditari Accountancy Research, and SA Journal of Economic and Management Sciences.
Professor Uliana also acts as referee for local and international journals and serves on the review panel of the National Research Foundation.
He is co-author of three textbooks and serves on the executive committee for the SA Institute of Chartered Accountants Research programme.
Izak Janse van Rensburg
Executive Director: Information and Communication Technology Services (ICTS)
Izak (Sakkie) Janse van Rensburg joined UCT as executive director of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on 1 February, 2009.
Prior to his appointment Janse van Rensburg was director of ICT at the University of the Free State (UFS). He holds an MBA from UFS and has more than 25 years' experience in the ICT sector. He spent 22 years in the private sector, during which time he built a private business that was sold to a JSE-listed company in 1998.
He has a strong track record of developing ICT strategies in the higher-education sector and of aligning these with the university's systems.
While at UFS, Janse van Rensburg facilitated key technology decisions, and oversaw the successful implementation of various systems, all of which improved service to the university. As UFS' strategic advisor, and reporting directly to senior management, he developed the university's ICT Strategic Plan and saw to its implementation. Part of his mandate was to align and harness technology for the benefit of the university's academic, administrative and research functions.
He is also the co-ordinator of the Special Interest Group on High Performance Computing for South African universities.
