So a little bit about me. I am a South African, a 'euro-African' (as I define myself), male. I have been married for 45 years to Heather, and we have three incredible children - Caryn Thandi, Andy Malusi, and Juliette Catherine-Anne Nosipho (therein lies a long story). Of the three, Andy is married, and his wife, Megan, is a rich addition to our family.
I have a PhD in theology, which I obtained from the University of Chicago back in 1995. Prior to that I had trained as a minister in the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa, and had spent 7 years in ministry during the turbulent 1980s in Cape Town. Five of those years were spent living and working on the Cape Flats, ministering to a congregation in Manenberg, one of the poorest and most troubled of the Cape Town communities. That time was the time of the struggle against Apartheid, and we were actively involved in the formation and growth of the United Democratic Front (UDF), that took the struggle to the streets.
I was arrested 6 times during this period, and spent two different spells in Detention, one for a period of 7 weeks, 10 days of which were spent on a hunger strike.
We left for Chicago in 1989, and spent a wonderful 6 years there, funded on Fulbright Scholarships.
On returning to South Africa in 1995, I was a Senior Lecturer in Theology and Ethics at the University of the Western Cape, and thought that my life was now settled as an academic. I co-authored a book with my colleague, Russel Botman, on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and was busy with the revision of my Doctoral thesis for publication with the University of Chicago Press when my world was turned upside down again.
The Faculty was closed by the University, and I lost my job.
Fortunately, I had started doing part-time strategy consulting the year before this, and was busy doing an organisational restructuring exercise with the South African Football Association at the time. Danny Jordaan, the then SAFA CEO, had just been seconded to head up the 2006 World Cup Bid Company for SAFA, and had asked me to join him as the COO.
So I began a journey in football, that has taken me from the Bidco, to becoming CEO of the Premier Soccer League, to other entrepreneurial work in football and business, and then to becoming the CEO of SAFA in 2011. I was then seconded from this role at my request to set up and run the SAFA Development Agency, which I did for the next 6 years.
Currently I have a number of projects I am working on, which I will blog about in the future.
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