Chief Executive Officer – Dr Karmani Chetty
Dr Chetty has wide experience and expertise relevant to the requirements of a CEO of the NHLS. She is a medical doctor and Specialist in Public Health Medicine and has a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning. She has over 30 years’ experience in the healthcare environment, of which over 20 years have been in senior management and executive positions. She has been an HoD of a provincial health department, and a Deputy Director-General at both provincial and national levels, as well as having had some private sector experience. Dr Chetty’s strengths include public health sector leadership, corporate governance, strategic planning, operational implementation, financial management, health economics, human resources planning, training and development, health information, supply chain management, and research.
Executive Manager: Academic Affairs, Research & Quality Assurance – Prof Koleka Mlisana
Professor Koleka Mlisana is the Executive Manager: Academic Affairs, Research & Quality Assurance at the NHLS, since July 2018. Prior to this she was the HOD Medical Microbiology at UKZN/IALCH; and also served a term as a member of the NHLS Board. Her previous contributions include being a co-investigator and Project Director of the CAPRISA 004 tenofovir gel trial at the eThekwini site and Head of HIV Pathogenesis and Vaccine Research Programme at the Centre for the AIDS Program of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA). She has undertaken seminal research which has revealed how the body responds during acute HIV infection. She was the Protocol co-Chair and Project Director of the CAPRISA 002 study, a >10 year follow-up study of patients with acute HIV infection. Her current research interests include TB diagnostics, drug resistance as well as Sexually Transmitted Infections and has co-authored more than 130 peer reviewed journal articles. She has been a member of the Board of the South African Medical Research Council and currently serves on the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Antimicrobial Resistance and is a member of the Board of Trustees for the South African National AIDS Council.
Chief Information Officer – Sibongiseni Hlongwane
Mr Hlongwane holds a Master of Business and a Master of Technology in Business Information Systems.
Mr Hlongwane joins the NHLS from the position of Director of Information Technology Service Management in the Gauteng Department of Education, where he also acted as Chief Director. Prior to this he was IT Support / Delivery Service Manager at IBM / Masana Consortium.
Chief Financial Officer – Pumeza Mayekiso
Ms Mayekiso is a qualified Chartered Accountant with over 15 years of experience working across the areas of Financial Planning, Financial Monitoring, Financial Reporting and Audit and Compliance. She obtained a Bachelor of Commerce (BCom) Honours at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and a BCom degree at Rhodes University. She thereafter served her articles at Deloitte in Port Elizabeth.
As Chief Financial Officer (CFO), she is responsible for the financial function, which includes facilities, supply chain, billing and revenue, finance reporting, payroll and accounts receivable
Executive Director NICD – Prof Adrien Puren
Prof Puren is the newly appointed Executive Director of the NICD since December 2020. Prof Adrian Puren was trained and held a lectureship at the University of the Witwatersrand, before taking on various positions at the NICD. Adrian was appointed as Deputy Director and Head of Virology in 1999 and Head of the Centre for HIV and STIs in 2017. As head of virology, he focused on developing and implementing a range of viral diagnostic platforms in support of the NICD’s EPI surveillance programmes and diagnostic support.
Adrian’s main interest is in the development of HIV surveillance programmes with a particular focus on HIV incidence and the use of “big data” to inform surveillance, monitoring and evaluation. Prof Puren heads the regional and national endpoint diagnostics laboratory for HVTN-supported vaccine and antibody-mediated preventions trials. He serves as the quality assurance technical manager for the NICD and in this capacity, he has provided support to the National Department of Health’s implementation and quality assurance of HIV rapid testing. Prof Puren serves on various expert bodies and the most recent is the South African Lancet Commission on High Quality Health in the era of Sustainable Development Goals.
Executive Director: NIOH – Dr Spo Kgalamono
Dr Kgalamono is a renowned expert in occupational medicine and regarded as one of the most influential women in occupational health in South Africa. She is presently the Executive Director for the National Institute of Occupational Health and with over 20 years’ occupational health experience under her belt, Dr Kgalamono is a joint appointee and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Witwatersrand, School of Public Health. She has co-authored several peer-reviewed journals and her main area of interest is workplace mental health. Over the years, she has received many awards including the Best Investigator Award in 2010 at the International Mesothelioma Conference in Japan, and the Golden Key Award for excellent achievement in 2010. The Public Health Association of South Africa (PHASA) in 2011 recognised her as one of the three most influential women in public health in South Africa. She also sits on several committees including the SA Society for Occupational Medicine; the International Working Group on Occupational Diseases; and the Medical Bureau for Occupational Diseases Review Authority.
Human Resources Executive: Makgopelo Mkhwanazi
Ms. Mkhwanazi is an experienced HR practitioner with over 20 years of experience in the field. She has progressed through the ranks, gaining experience in all areas of human resource management, including strategy and policy development, training and development, organisational design and development, recruitment, HR administration, labour relations, performance management, and succession planning. She has worked in a variety of industries, including manufacturing, ICT, engineering, FMCG, and health care. Her career began as a professional nurse before transitioning to corporate after earning a BA(Hons) in industrial and organisational psychology and, later, an Executive MBA.
Throughout her career, she has managed projects such as establishing HR departments from the ground up, merging six entities, resulting in the alignment of all policies and processes into one, cost-cutting initiatives that resulted in maximising internal capabilities, and developing culture initiatives that supported the organization’s vision, to name a few.
Company Secretary – Adv Mpho Mphelo
Chief Operating Officer: Strategic Initiatives – Dr Clothilde Oliphant
Dr Oliphant brings more than 20 years of operational excellence gained from the various roles she held in the health sector, industry and academia. She most recently worked as a senior manager and health specialist in the Auditor-General of South Africa’s office, where she was responsible for providing strategic inputs and supporting the implementation of the government’s strategy for auditing the health sector, identifying value-add audit opportunities for the health sector, and interacting with Executive Authorities and oversight committees on key findings. She is also an extraordinary lecturer at the University of Pretoria’s School of Health Systems and Public Health.
She graduated from the University of Cape Town with an MBChB and a Master of Medicine (Public Health Medicine).