Our people, their combined skillsets & years of relevant experience set them apart
Prof. Thando Vilakazi
director
Prof. Thando Vilakazi is Executive Director of the Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development. He is Associate Professor of Economics in the School of Economics at the University of Johannesburg (UJ). Prof Vilakazi also serves as Part-Time Member of the Competition Tribunal of South Africa.
He holds a Ph. D. (Economics) from UJ, and an MCom (Applied Economics) and B.Bus.Sc (Economics) from the University of Cape Town. His primary research interests are in the areas of competition economics and policy, regional integration, political economy, barriers to entry and economic participation, and industrial policy.
Prof Vilakazi was co-editor and co-author of an HSRC Press book titled ‘Opening the South African Economy: Barriers to Entry and Competition’. He has published several peer reviewed book chapters in Oxford University Press, HSRC Press, and Wits University Press publications, as well as journal articles in The World Economy, Development and Change, Global Networks, Development Southern Africa, and Review of African Political Economy. He currently serves on the editorial boards of the Review of International Political Economy and The African Journal of Information and Communication.
Seli Nthite
Programme Coordinator
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Seli holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from North West University, Diploma in Advanced Human Resources Management from Birnam Business College and a certificate in Business Administration from the University of Johannesburg. She is currently registered for the Mcom in Local Economic Development at the University of Johannesburg.
Prior to joining CCRED, Seli was an Administrator in the School of Economics at the University of Johannesburg where she coordinated postgraduate administration, Secretariat of the Departmental Higher Degrees Committee, managing timetable and examination issues. She previously worked in the Department of Town and Regional Planning as the Departmental Secretary/Administrator and as a Project Administrator at Occupational Care South Africa (OCSA) and Executive Secretary at Fisha Wellness Group.
Prof. Reena Das Nair
Senior lecturer & Researcher
Prof Reena das Nair is a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development (CCRED) and Programme Coordinator and Associate Professor in the Master of Commerce in Competition and Economic Regulation programme at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.
Reena has worked for specialist economic consultancy Acacia Economics offering expertise in competition and regulatory economics. Prior to joining CCRED, Reena was Programme Manager: Industrial Policy at Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS), a not-for-profit research organisation undertaking research for policy makers. Before TIPS, she worked as Principal Economist at the Competition Commission of South Africa where she undertook investigations and economic analysis in mergers, abuse of dominance and cartel cases. Reena provides training and capacity building for regulators and competition law and economics professionals in Southern and East Africa.
Her areas of research interest include competition dynamics in the grocery retail sector; food value chains and regional value chains, with a focus on barriers to entry for small and medium-sized enterprises and alternative routes to market in food systems.
Reena holds a PhD (Economics) from the University of Johannesburg and a MCom (Economics) from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. She has published widely, including in the International Review of Applied Economics, Development Southern Africa and the Journal of Energy in Southern Africa. She has also co-authored chapters in Oxford University Press, HSRC Press and Wits University Press book publications.
Sumayya goga
Senior Researcher
Sumayya Goga is a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development (CCRED)
Prior to joining CCRED, Sumayya was an Engagement Manager at Pegasys Strategy where she focused on sustainable development in the context of water resources. She also previously worked at the Development Policy Research Unit at the University of Cape Town, focusing on research and analysis related to the labour market and labour market policies in South Africa. She has been involved in research, policy and strategy development in the sustainable development space.
Sumayya has a Masters in Commerce (Economics) and Bachelor of Business Science (Honours in Economics) from the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Shingie Chisoro
senior Researcher
Shingie Chisoro is a researcher at the Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development (CCRED) at the University of Johannesburg.
Prior to joining CCRED, Shingie worked as a researcher at the Centre for the Study of Equality, Social Organization and Performance (ESOP) in Norway focusing on institutions, mineral wealth and long-term economic development in developing countries. Since joining CCRED in 2015, Shingie has worked on various research projects on global and regional value chains, competition and industrial development in agriculture and agro-processsing sectors in South Africa, and Southern and East Africa. She has published in the Development Southern Africa Journal and co-authored book chapters in the Oxford University Press and HSRC Press.
Shingie holds a Master of Philosophy in Economics from the University of Oslo, Norway and a Bachelor of Science Honours Degree in Economics from the University of Zimbabwe.
Karissa Moothoo Padayachie
Researcher
Karissa Moothoo Padayachie is an Economist and Researcher at CCRED. She holds a Master of Commerce (Economics) degree from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. She also holds a Bachelor of Commerce Honours in Economics (Summa Cum Laude) and a Bachelor of Commerce (Economics and Finance) degree from the same institution.
Prior to joining CCRED, Karissa worked as an Economist at the Competition Tribunal of South Africa where she was actively involved in providing pre and post hearing economic advice and research to the Tribunal’s panel members on mergers, cartels, and abuse of dominance cases. She has also worked alongside the panel members to draft some of the Tribunal’s most significant precedent setting judgements. In addition, she is also co-authoring the forthcoming update to the Tribunal’s Competition Law Handbook.
Karissa has extensive knowledge on competition law and before joining the Competition Tribunal she worked at the Competition Commission of South Africa. Prior to working for the competition authorities, Karissa also worked as a researcher at the Human Sciences Research Council where she contributed to research on Early Childhood Development.
Grace Nsomba
researcher
Grace Nsomba is an Economist and Associate Researcher at CCRED. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Law and Economics from the University of Pretoria. She also holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) degree in Economics from the same institution.
She is passionate about economic transformation and sustainable growth and her areas of interest are regional integration and regional value chains, industrial policy and inclusive growth in addressing the challenges of poverty, inequality and unemployment.
Julius Nyamwena
associate researcher
Julius K.T Nyamwena is an Economist at CCRED. He holds a Bsc Economics degree from the University of Zimbabwe and a Masters in Economics from the University of Limpopo. He is currently pursuing a second Master’s degree – MCom Competition and Economic Regulation – at the University of Johannesburg.
Julius area of interest is in inclusive sustainable industrial development in South Africa and Africa as a whole. With a keen interest’s in the role of digitisation in the economy, Julius has been involved in contributing to issues around competition and regulation, and policy surrounding E-Commerce, data governance and the role of digital platforms as routes to markets.
Julius currently forms part of the team involved in undertaking research in industrial development in South Africa under the Industrial Development Think Tank (IDTT). Under this pillar industrial development at CCRED, Julius has contributed to the following projects; i) Skills and technological upgrading in the context of the 4IR; ii) Skills development for diversification and inclusive growth; iii) Competitiveness and capabilities for industrial development and iv) Industrial policy to support manufacturing firms.
His work has ranged from agriculture and agro-processing value chains, machinery and equipment sector, plastics industry, digitalisation and competition and regulation.
Olwethu Shedi
associate researcher
Olwethu Shedi is an Economist and Associate Researcher at the Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development (CCRED). She holds a Master of Commerce degree in Economics (distinction) from the University of the Witwatersrand.
Prior to joining CCRED, Olwethu worked as an associate researcher at the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS). Olwethu’s previous research has been on public finance and national budgeting. Her research interests include gender, competition policy and industrial development, poverty, and early childhood development.
Prof. Simon Roberts
lead researcher
Professor Simon Roberts is a professor at the University of Johannesburg, in the Economics and Econometrics Department.
He held the position of Executive Director of CCRED from 2013 to 2018, and Chief Economist and Manager of the Policy & Research Division at the Competition Commission from November 2006 to December 2012. Prior to joining the Competition Commission he was Associate Professor of Economics at the University of the Witwatersrand, where he established and directed the Corporate Strategy and Industrial Development research programme examining firm decision-making and economic outcomes. In addition, Simon has consulted extensively on competition matters over the past 15 years and has been an expert witness in a number of major cases.
Previous positions include lecturer in Development Economics, University of East Anglia, UK; Senior Research Officer, Bank of Botswana; and lecturer in Economics, University College Cork, Ireland. Simon holds a PhD from University of London (Birkbeck College), MA from University of East Anglia, and BA (Hons) from Oxford University.
He has published widely including in the World Competition, Journal of Competition Law and Economics, Industrial and Corporate Change, Journal of African Economies, Development and Change, Journal of International Development, and the South African Journal of Economics.
Mark Burke
Research Manager
Mark holds a Master of Management (Public and Development Management) with distinction from the University of the Witwatersrand. He is currently registered for a PhD at Wits focused on exploring public service digitalisation.
Mark’s research interest and main area of experience is in the intersection between governance (particularly, the role of institutions in governance and increasingly the adoption of digital technologies by institutions) and promotion of inclusive economic development processes. He has expertise in strategic planning, organisation design, development and transformation; programme design, capacity development and implementation; and digital government project design and implementation. Using this expertise, Mark has acquired extensive experience in supporting institutional development of competition authorities.
He has provided strategic planning and implementation support to the Competition Commission South Africa, the Namibian Competition Commission, the Swaziland Competition Commission, and the East African Competition Authority.
Ntombifuthi Tshabalala
assistant lecturer
Ntombifuthi Tshabalala is an Economist and Assistant Lecturer at the Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development (CCRED) at the University of Johannesburg. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Economics & Econometrics and a Bachelor of Commerce Honours degree in Economics from the University of Johannesburg. She is currently completing a Master of Commerce degree in Development Economics from the same institution.
Prior to joining CCRED, she worked in data analyst roles in various organisations. Her research interests are competition economics and industrial development, particularly in regional value chains in agriculture in Southern and East Africa.
Dr Elvis Avenyo
senior Researcher
Dr. Elvis Korku Avenyo is a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Competition, Regulation, and Economic Development (CCRED).
Before joining CCRED, Elvis was a Researcher on the Inclusive Digital Model (IDMODEL) Project at the Technology and Management Centre for Development (TMCD), Oxford Department of International Development (ODID), University of Oxford. He was also a Global Excellence and Stature (GES) Fellow, and Open AIR’s Queen Elizabeth’s Scholar (QES) at the South African Research Chair in Industrial Development Unit, University of Johannesburg. He has teaching and other work-related experiences from Maastricht University, University of Cape Coast, and the International Labour Organization (ILO- Geneva).
Elvis obtained his Ph.D. in Economics of Innovation, Policy Studies of Technical Change and Governance from the United Nations University (UNU-MERIT)/Maastricht University, The Netherlands. He holds a collaborative Master of Philosophy (M Phil.) in Economics from the University of Cape Coast and the African Economic Research Consortium’s Joint Facility for Electives: Collaborative Masters Programme (CMAP) in Economics.
He researches broadly on development economics with interests in innovation, technical change, industrial development, labour markets, firm behaviour, and with a focus on developing countries. He has also conducted research on trade, global value chains, and COVID-19, among other related issues.
Elvis has published in reputable academic journals such as Research Policy, Journal of Evolutionary Economics, and several working papers. He has a host of revised submissions to highly ranked journals in Economics, and also co-authored a chapter in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organizations’ UNESCO Science Report: Towards 2030, published in 2015.
Teboho Bosiu
researcher
Teboho is an Economist and Researcher at CCRED. He holds a Master of Economic Science degree from Wits University, a Bachelor of Economic Sciences with Honours, and Bachelor of Science degree at the same institution. He is currently pursuing a second masters degree – MCom Competition and Economic Regulation – at the University of Johannesburg.
Prior to CCRED, Teboho was a quantitative analyst at Quartile Capital, where he was responsible for the company’s loan portfolio.
His current areas of focus are on industrial development and competition policy. On industrial development, his work has covered several sectors such as poultry, fertiliser, steel, and plastics and chemicals, giving him invaluable experience in value chain analysis. He has also worked on development finance and its impact on competition and industrial development in South Africa.
On competition-related projects, his work has cut across several areas including cartels, mergers, barriers to entry, and abuse of market power. As a result he has conducted extensive analysis on the strategic behaviour of large and dominant firms in the South African economy. He has authored several papers and presented at both local and international conferences.
Jason F. Bell
researcher
Jason F. Bell is an Economist and Researcher at the Centre for Competition Regulation and Economic Development (CCRED). He holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Economic Science, Corporate Finance and Investment from the University of the Witwatersrand. He also holds a Bachelor of Economic Sciences (Honours) (Cum Laude) and a Master of Commerce in Economics from the same institution. He is pursuing a PhD in Industrial Development, looking into the spatial and industrial nexus relating to township economies.
Jason’s work has spanned many areas of economic development, having researched and written on political economy and industrial development issues, regulation, governments and institutions' role in fostering growth and the evolution, development finance institutions, climate change, and the distribution of power within global value chains. From a sector perspective, Jason has conducted work in the metals, machinery and equipment, plastics, automotives, and green hydrogen sectors in South Africa. He has contributed to multiple research outputs across a diverse subject range, publishing in peer-reviewed journals, book chapters, and other high-ranking international publications.
Nwabisa Nontenja
associate researcher
Nwabisa Nontenja is an Economist and Associate Researcher at the Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development (CCRED). She holds a Bachelor of Business Science degree from the University of Cape Town and a Master of Commerce degree in Economics from the University of the Witwatersrand.
Nwabisa’s research interests encompass various topics relevant to South Africa’s economic development, including labour economics, industrial policy, inequality, local government and service delivery, and migration. Nwabisa’s previous research has investigated revenue management and its impact on the service delivery of rural district municipalities; methods to encourage advocacy and engagement of rural communities in the municipal budget preparation process and in municipal financial management; and the impact of self-selection and migrant characteristics on their labour market outcomes.