Trudi Makhaya: meet Ramaphosa’s new firebrand adviser How to get your child into a school
Meet Trudi Makhaya, the powerhouse adviser President Cyril Ramaphosa has entrusted with helping to steer the economy and attracting investors
MOST people had never heard of her – until President Cyril Ramaphosa mentioned her name recently. And when he did, it made everyone sit up and listen because it was obvious he expects big things of Trudi Makhaya. At age 40 she’s the youngest economic adviser ever to a post-’94 South African president, but Ramaphosa has made it clear he has the utmost faith in the dynamic businesswoman. In her new role it won’t only be her job to help him in making big economical decisions – he’s also counting on her to help him lure investments to the tune of R1,2 trillion to our shores within the next five years.
This is what he believes South Africa needs to get on the road to prosperity, and he’s so serious about achieving this goal he’s assembled an elite team of the country’s best business brains to make sure the money comes rolling in.
The team – consisting of former minister and deputy minister of finance Trevor Manuel and Mcebisi Jonas respectively, renowned banker Jacko Maree and business leader Phumzile Langeni – is formally referred to as special envoys on investment, but the president, who’s affectionately known as “The Buffalo”, refers to them as his “lions”. It’s their job to travel the globe and persuade investors to seek their fortune here, and while they do so it will be Makhaya who coordinates their efforts.
But who’s the woman who’ll be guiding Ramaphosa’s economic A-Team as they pursue their mammoth task? B ORN and raised in the village of Hammanskraal, near Pretoria, Makhaya was a go-getter from a young age. In 1996 she matriculated with distinction from St Barnabas College in Randburg.
In the tough ’80s and ’90s most learners at the school hailed from disadvantaged communities around the country. “We were in an institution that believed in us . . . we understood that we were taken seriously, and that made us take ourselves seriously,” Makhaya has said in previous interviews.
She obtained a BCom in law and economics from Wits as well as a master’s in economics before moving on as a Rhodes Scholar to Oxford University in England where she graduated with an MBA and MSc in development economics.
Makhaya believes the most valuable thing she learnt at Oxford was to know her own worth and not to be intimidated by “greatness”.
“Many world leaders and brilliant minds pass through Oxford to give talks. Meeting some of them tempered the tendency to put these types of individuals on a pedestal,” she said in an interview with online mentor platform Change Exchange. “Observing someone like Hillary Clinton at close range and realising she’s ultimately a nice, hardworking tannie, not some mythical superwoman, is quite liberating. And inspiring. Suddenly a lot of things appear within reach.”
On her return from Oxford she worked as a consultant for auditing giant Deloitte, economic research group
Genesis Analytics and mining group AngloGold Ashanti, before joining the Competition Commission in 2010. There she served first as chief economist and later as executive committee member and deputy commissioner. In the latter capacity she played a big role in holding accountable the 15 construction companies that improperly influenced tenders for the 2010 Fifa World Cup. They were fined a record R1,46 billion.
She was also previously a director of MTN South Africa and the Vumelana Advisory Fund. Since 2015 she’s served as CEO of Makhaya Advisory, a consultancy group she founded to offer mentorship and start-up capital to budding entrepreneurs.
Makhaya believes young South Africans who want to start their own ventures shouldn’t have to jump through too many hoops – but, she cautions, they should choose their industry carefully so they don’t get crushed by big companies.
As a columnist for Business Day and Acumen, a business journal of the Gordon Institute of Business Science, she’s often shared her views on issues relating to national economic interest. She enjoys writing and in her spare time has tried her hand at fiction, with some of her short stories appearing in the literary journal New Contrast and other publications. She’s also active on Twitter. On occasion she’s expressed admiration for Curro as an “outstanding success in the affordable [education] segment” as well as for banking group Capitec’s role in offering accessible finance.
Makhaya also predicted former president Jacob Zuma would fire finance minister Nhlanhla Nene about a year before it happened.
From her writings it seems she believes all role players have to sacrifice if South Africa is to compete better with the rest of the world: “We need to transition to a moderate-cost, highly productive economy. We have to be unflinching in examining our weakness in education, health, governance and infrastructure and fix that.”
She also hasn’t been afraid to criticise the government, in particular its recent record of policy implementation: “Government’s ability to effect change in the economy has also been hampered by poor implementation and weak systems of accountability,” she wrote.
After the ANC voted Ramaphosa in as its new president in December she wrote that it was time to get to work on many of the issues the Zuma government had stalled on. And it seems the president was listening – not only has he shown himself ready to make sweeping changes, he’s now appointed Makhaya to help him do it.
‘We need to transition to a moderate-cost, highly productive economy’