Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) has appointed Busisiwe Mavuso as its chief operations officer and board member with effect from 1 November 2017. Mavuso will be responsible, among others, for operations; finance & administration; ICT; compliance; policy & strategy; membership services and programme management.

Mavuso was the MD of the Black Management Forum (BMF), an organisation she has been with since 2009 as chief financial officer and since May last year, as its managing director after numerous acting stints.

“In Busisiwe Mavuso, the BLSA has attracted a strong general manager, a strong defender of our democracy, a change agent who is also a passionate development activist and advocate of transformation,” said Bonang Mohale, CEO of BLSA. “Under her stewardship, the BMF’s business performance significantly strengthened, grew its assets and revenue base to enable it to continue its mandate of developing black managerial leadership thereby developing more black leadership talent, which is one of BLSA’s key objectives.”

Mavuso joins an executive team led by Mohale and includes former government spokesperson, Themba Maseko as communications director, Sizwe Mbele as director of strategy and Tebela Makhetha as director of policy and legislation.

Mavuso holds, among other qualifications, a Masters in Business Leadership (MBL) from the UNISA School of Business Leadership, a postgraduate qualification in management from GIBS, a BCompt degree from UNISA and is a member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA).

Mavuso started her finance career in 1995 in the banking industry. She has also worked in training and consulting, telecoms and healthcare prior to joining the BMF.

“I am honoured to be joining BLSA at a time when social dialogue needs to be both strengthened and elevated. This will add a new dimension to my advocacy work and am excited by this challenge,” said Mavuso of her appointment.

BLSA represents more than 70 of South Africa’s largest businesses and multinational companies. BLSA recently signed a Contract with South Africa and launched an Integrity Pledge through which it aims to create jobs, develop leadership and combat public and private sector corruption and state capture.