NMMU public lecture on “Innovation and Entrepreneurship”
NMMU Chancellor to give public lecture in George on “Innovation and Entrepreneurship”
Ms Santie Botha, distinguished marketing and brand strategist, change agent, business executive, and current Chancellor of Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, will share her expertise and insights with the community of George at a public lecture to be hosted by the university at the NMMU George Campus on 11 November.
The topic focuses on “Innovation and Entrepreneurship”, a subject area which Chancellor Botha is pre-eminently equipped to discuss, given her background in economics and proven track record in the global business arena, notably the financial services industry and mobile telephone industry.
Profile of Ms Santie Botha
Ms Botha’s career started at Unilever in 1987, and included spending six years in the UK, culminating in the position of Commercial Sales Director of van den Berg Foodservice, UK. On returning to South Africa in 1996 she joined the ABSA Group as Marketing Director charged with the overall marketing strategy and structure for the group, as well as the implementation of new initiatives to dramatically change the business. This included being instrumental in the successful merging and rationalization of four retail brands into a single brand – the ABSA brand.
She progressively moved up the corporate ladder and was appointed as Group Executive Director of the ABSA Group in 1998, with an extensive portfolio which provided the scope to initiate and implement a new strategy and structure for the ABSA Group which saw the launch of its Free Internet Access in the South African market – a strategy which catapulted the ABSA brand to the top ten brands in the country after only three years.
In July 2003 Ms Botha joined the MTN Group as Executive Director: Marketing where she was again instrumental in highly successful rebranding interventions, and in extensively growing MTN’s business from six to 21 countries between 2003 and 2010, as part of the MTN executive team. She left the company at the end of 2010 to pursue her own and other business interests.
Some of her prestigious awards in her career include Young Business Person of the Year in 1998, Fellowship of the Institute of Marketing Management (IMM) in 2001, Marketer of the Year (Marketing Federation of South Africa) in 2002 and most recently, Business Woman of the Year in 2010.
Since 2004 she has served as non-executive director for Tiger Brands, a position which she still holds.
Ms Santie Botha was inaugurated as NMMU’s Chancellor in April 2011. She is the youngest chancellor at any South African university.
Invitation and further information
Members of the public who would like to attend Chancellor Botha’s lecture at the NMMU George Campus on Monday 11 November at 12:00 can contact the Marketing and Corporate Relations Department (044 801 5111, alet.vantonder@nmmu.ac.za) for more information and to confirm availability of seating. Booking is essential.