Board of directors
SL (Santie) Botha
BEcon; BEcon (Hons)
Santie is the chairperson of Famous Brands Ltd and Capitec Bank Holdings Ltd. She has a wide range of knowledge and experience in different sectors, ranging from fast-moving consumer goods ('FMCG'), where she started her career in Unilever and worked in various roles in both Durban and London, UK (1987 to 1996), banking (executive director: ABSA Bank, 1996 to 2003) and telecommunications (executive director: MTN, 2003 to 2010). Santie was named Business Woman of the Year 2010. She was the chancellor of Nelson Mandela University from 2011 to 2017.
JP (Cobus) Loubser
CA(SA)
Cobus left his position as Long4Life’s Sport and Recreation division CEO at the end of 2020 to join Curro as CFO from January 2021. He was appointed CEO in January 2023. He started his career at KPMG, served as financial manager at Virgin Active SA, and held the CFO position at Holdsport CFO for 11 years, before joining Long4Life.
Marí Lategan
BA; BA Hons (Journalism); MBA
Marí has an MBA from Stellenbosch University’s Business School and an Honours in Journalism. She has been an executive at Curro for more than six years and a Non-Executive Director for Meridian Schools for more than four years. She established Curro Create, Curro’s national creative initiative. Prior to Curro, she founded a strategic business and communications consultancy and was a publisher at Media24. Marí was appointed as Deputy CEO in January 2023.
Burtie September
CA (SA)
Burtie is a chartered accountant who completed his SAICA articles at Deloitte, Cape Town before joining Deloitte’s office in Indianapolis in the USA on a secondment. He worked at South African Breweries as a management accountant at one of its largest distribution centres in South Africa before he was employed as a senior accountant at Woolworths Financial Services. He joined Curro as financial manager in 2016 and was appointed CFO in January 2023.
TP (Themba) Baloyi
Henley Executive MBA, ACIS, ND CMA
Themba was appointed as an independent non-executive director to the Board from 1 November 2020. He studied and completed Cost and Management Accounting, Corporate Governance through ICSA and has an Executive MBA from Henley Business School (UK). He completed business leadership studies through Gordon Institute of Business Science, University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business and Duke University (US).
Themba is an innovative and entrepreneurial business leader who founded Discovery Insure Ltd ('Discovery Insure'), a short-term insurance company launched in 2011. The Discovery Insure work propelled him to win the 2018 CNBC Africa All Africa Business Leaders 'Entrepreneur of the Year Award'. He was honoured as a 2015 World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. Currently he serves as chairman on the board of Constantia Insurance Group Ltd and is a board member of CalgroM3 Holdings and the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation, amongst others.
ZN (Nan) Mankai
CA(SA); MBA
Nan was appointed as an independent non-executive director to the Curro board from 10 August 2018. She currently chairs the Curro audit and risk committee. Nan is at present a Senior Investment Manager at the Mineworkers Investment Company. Nan’s experience has been in private equity and investment management, having worked for private equity funds and built on balance sheet portfolios for corporates. Her recent experience also includes involvement in project finance and infrastructure investment opportunities and overseeing the internal audit function. Nan has extensive experience in serving on boards and on audit and social and ethics committees.
PJ (Piet) Mouton
BCom (Mathematics)
Piet is the CEO of PSG Group Ltd and serves as a non-executive director on the boards of various of its investee companies, including Capitec Bank Holdings Ltd, PSG Konsult Ltd and Zeder Investments Ltd. He has served in the investment and financial services industries since 1999.
Prof. SWF (Sibongile) Muthwa
BA (SW) (Fort Hare); BA (SW) Hons (Wits); MSc (SPPDC); PhD (London)
Sibongile has international leadership and management experience in the non-governmental, development and public sectors, and also in academia. Currently she is the Vice-Chancellor of the Nelson Mandela University. Between 2004 and 2010, Sibongile served as the director general of the Eastern Cape Provincial Government. She is the current Chair of Universities South Africa (USAf), a membership organisation representing the 26 South African Public Universities. She also chairs the Ministerial Task Team on Sexual Harassment and Gender Based Violence and Harm in SA Universities; and is a member of the Human Resource Development Council of South Africa. Sibongile is also a board member of the Nelson Mandela Business Chamber and chairs its governance committee.
DM (Douglas) Ramaphosa
MA (Social Sciences); Programme for Executive Development (Institute of Management Development)
Douglas has more than 35 years of business experience at an executive management and board level. He is currently chairman of IRCA (Pty) Ltd, serves on the Board of Curro, and is chairman and founder member of investment companies such as Mnotho Group and Chakula Wote Africa. Douglas served as a non-executive director for EnviroServ, Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (‘WESSA’), STADIO and also served at a senior executive level for corporations including Altron, Transnet, ABSA and Anglo American. He was CEO of Bytes Healthcare Solutions, managing director of Bytes Specialised Solutions, and served on the boards of Anglo American (SA), Eskom Enterprises and was chairperson of Rotek Industries.
Dr CR (Chris) van der Merwe
B.Prim (Ed), US; B.Ed, UNISA; M.Ed (cum laude), US; D.Ed, US
Chris has extensive knowledge and experience in the independent school and tertiary sectors. He founded Curro in 1998 and in 2011, under his leadership, the company was listed on the JSE. Chris served as CEO until June 2017 when he stepped down, unbundled the Embury Institute for Higher Education, a teachers’ college, from Curro and then listed STADIO, an independent provider of tertiary education on the JSE in October 2017. He served STADIO as CEO until the company delivered on the promises of its pre-listing statement and stepped down in March 2020. Dr Van der Merwe has subsequently served PSG and STADIO as an education consultant. He currently also serves on the boards of Curro and STADIO as a non-executive director.
