Governance Committee

The functions of the Governance Committee are to:

Oversee fund-raising activities, and appoint a fund-raising committee, if necessary
Determine broad policies and activity areas
Determine research policy
Approve the business strategy and a business plan
Approve budgets
Approve risk management policies
Consider reports and applications, and to provide recommendations to the USB and the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, including recommendations in terms of recruitment and remuneration, and
Address any other issue that might impact significantly on the Centre.

The committee of the Centre for Corporate Governance in Africa consists of Prof John Powell, Director of the USB; Prof Johann de Villiers, Dean of the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, Stellenbosch University; Prof Bob Garratt (ex officio); Mr Daniel Malan (ex officio); Prof Philip Sutherland; Dr Minka Woermann; Prof Wolfgang Thomas.

Governance Committee

Prof John Powell: Prof John Powell

Prof John Powell was appointed as the Director of the University of Stellenbosch Business School in 2010. Prior to this he was the Professor of Strategy at Cardiff University. In his academic career he has held various positions including Professor of Strategy at Southampton University, Professor of Strategic Analysis at Bath University, and Lecturer/Senior Lecturer at Bath University. He has also held the position of Director of Submarines at British Aerospace plc. He holds a BA and an MA from Cambridge University, as well as a PhD from Cranfield University. His areas of expertise include strategic analysis, particularly using Operational Research methods in Strategy, Strategic Knowledge, and Scenario Methods. His research interest is in Operational Research methods in strategy including network scenario planning, epistemetrics, and systems methods for knowledge management. He is a Member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, as well as a Fellow of the Institution of Mathematics and its Applications. He is both a Chartered Engineer, and a Chartered Mathematician.
Prof Johann de Villiers: Prof Johann de Villiers

Prof De Villiers is dean of the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at Stellenbosch University. He holds a PhD degree from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits). He also holds a CFA and degrees from the University of Stellenboch, namely MBA and BEng.
Prof Philip Sutherland: Prof Philip Sutherland

Prof Philip Sutherland holds BComm (1988) and LLB (1990) degrees from Stellenbosch University and a PhD from the University of Edinburgh (1997). He worked as a student assistant in Germany in 1996 and returned to South Africa in 1997 to become senior lecturer in the Department of Mercantile Law at Stellenbosch University. He was promoted to associate professor (2001) and professor (2005) in the same department. He teaches and researches in the areas of corporate, competition and financial services law. He has published a number of articles and is co-author of the book Competition Law of South Africa. He does extensive consulting and opinion work in the area of business law, is a member of the Financial Services Board (since 2001) and has just been appointed to the Actuarial Governance Board (2007).
Dr Minka Woermann: Dr Minka Woermann

Dr Minka Woermann is a lecturer in Philosophy and Business Ethics and is head of the Unit for Business Ethics and Public Integrity in the Centre for Applied Ethics, Stellenbosch University.

She has been teaching business and professional ethics since 2005. Her research interests include post-structural philosophy (specifically the work of Jacques Derrida), business ethics, and complexity theory.

She recently completed her PhD dissertation, which constitutes a critical evaluation and re-inscription of the normative basis of business ethics.

She is currently busy re-working her dissertation into a book, entitled 'On the (Im)Possibility of Business Ethics: Critical Complexity, Deconstruction, and Implications for Understanding the Ethics of Business', which is to be published by Springer.
Prof Wolfgang Thomas: Prof Wolfgang Thomas

Email: Wolfgang.Thomas@usb.ac.za

Prof. Wolfgang H. Thomas, an economics graduate of Stellenbosch University, has been lecturing development economics and economic policy since the 1960s, having been attached to all four Cape Town/Stellenbosch-based universities as well as the University of Transkei. He has also been regional general manager of the Small Business Development Corporation (1986 to 1993) and was chief economist at Wesgro for ten years. He is currently lecturing at the economics department of the University of the Western Cape as well as Stellenbosch University Business School, where he also co-ordinates the Western Cape chapter of the "Base of the Pyramid Learning Lab" which monitors corporate involvement in South(ern) Africa's developing communities. His publications and consultancy reports cover applied local, regional and African development issues as well as tourism-development challenges and small-business-support issues in both the Western and Eastern Cape regions.