DR JOHN MUDAU

Dr Mudau joined UIGC in 2015 and has two and a half years to go of his second five-year contract. His initial training is in social work, he then did a master’s degree in management, a PhD in development studies, and an MBA. He has worked at several academic institutions as an administrator and academic.

Mudau says what attracted him to UIGC initially was what he understood the company wanted to achieve in terms of training. “I thought I could make a difference because of my business background.

“I was attracted by the fact that the university wanted to create an entity that would create value and increase their third-stream income. At the time, the thinking was that we should become the equivalent of what had been done at Wits, the University of Pretoria, Stellenbosch and the University of Cape Town. But we took a different route, and now we run businesses that vary from security, to gardening to a telecoms company.

“I have been fortunate that, throughout both my terms, I have had good support from the UIGC board. As they say, the success of any CEO is largely based on the support the CEO gets from the board. They are fully behind the management team, and we can dream all we want because our board dreams equally.”