After a vigorous independent recruitment process, Cricket South Africa (CSA) announced the appointment of four successful candidates who will form part of the organisation’s dynamic Executive team.
The appointees are listed below, together with their short bios in no particular order:
Chief Commercial Officer – Mtunzi Jonas, Mtunzi who describes himself as a sports fanatic with a passion for the business of sport, has over 18 years’ experience and a track record of building effective, productive relationships in the sports industry.
He joins CSA from a successful tenure at the Absa Group Limited, where he was General Manager for Sponsorships. At Absa he developed and managed the Group’s sponsorship strategy. Attuned to managing large teams and budgets, Mtunzi has worked in leadership positions within large corporations, with a strong focus on sports marketing.
These include South African Breweries (SAB), Red Bull South Africa and Unilever South Africa (Pty) Ltd. Mtunzi holds a BCom (Economics & Marketing) degree including a General Management Programme from the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS).
Mtunzi’s achievements include SA Sports Industry Awards for the Absa Premiership and Absa Cape Epic as well as multiple industry awards from SAB’s Carling Black Label “Be the Coach” campaign.
Chief Financial Officer - Tjaart van der Walt A Chartered Accountant, Tjaart is a financial modelling specialist having worked as Principal at the CFO Centre where he worked on interim and final results of listed entities as per JSE listing requirements.
He was also a Financial Director, and later Commercial Director: Healthcare South Africa at Imperial, responsible for commercial management, negotiated commercial and service level agreements as well as providing oversight of annual budget and forecast processes.
This combined financial management and reporting, working capital management, budgets and forecasts, amongst others. Prior to joining Imperial, he was Chief Financial Officer for the RTT Group and Divisional Financial Director for the Marlin Group.
Director of Cricket – Thabiso Enoch Nkwe, Enoch played professional cricket for the Lions before he was forced to early retirement due to his career ending injury. He played 42 FC, 38 List A and 9 T20s. Enoch has extensive experience in setting up strategies for high performance structures.
With a proven track record of using excellent personal, communication and organization skills to lead and improve cricketing systems, recruit excellent personnel, and improve team efficiencies, Enoch was Strategic Cricket Consultant (Technical Director) at Lions Cricket.
He was responsible for Reviewing the existing CGL High-Performance approach and systems across all CGL cricket structures with the aim to propose a medium to long-term High-Performance Strategy.
He was also Assistant Head Coach and the Interim Team Director of the Protea Men’s National Team. His responsibilities included assisting in managing, monitoring and conducting the Men’s National Team’s daily training environment including facilities and coaches, daily schedules, session plans, player workloads, player communication and provided input, insight and guidance to help inform the discussions of the National Selection Panel (in accordance with the terms of the Selection Policy).
Furthermore, Enoch served as Head Coach of Jozi Stars for Mzansi Super League tournament, Assistant Coach for Vancouver Knights (Canadian Premier League) Assistant Coach (Netherlands Men’s National Team), Head Coach (Gauteng Strikers), Assistant Coach (South Africa “A” Team), Assistant Coach (South Africa U19 Team), and Head of High Performance (Gauteng Cricket).
Enoch holds a Level IV Coaching Certificate. Enoch’s achievements include winning: winning the Mzansi Super League with Jozi Stars in 2018, winning the CSA 4-Day Competition and CSA T20 Competition with the Lions in 2018/19, winning the CSA 3-Day, CSA 50 Over and CSA T20 Competition with the Gauteng Strikers; Coca Cola Khaya Majola Cricket Week December 2010; the Franchise U19 Tournament 2013; Unbeaten in the Cricket South Africa U19 3-Day Competition in season 2009/10, 2010/11 and 2012/13; the Triangular Series against Pakistan U19 and Zimbabwe U19 season 2011/12; the ODI Series against England U19 in 2012/13 Season; and finishing 3rd at the ICC U19 Cricket World 2012 in Australia.
Chief Marketing Officer – Wanele Mngomezulu, Wanele has extensive Executive experience in business, marketing and commercial strategy development and implementation within the sport, media, entertainment and broadcasting industry.
As Head of Marketing, Commercial and Communications at the Central Gauteng Lions Cricket Union, Wanele was part of the inaugural launch of the Mzansi Super League responsible for the marketing and promotion of the Jozi Stars brand as well as revamped Lions Cricket Union brand proposition.
Under his tenure, the Lions won the 2019/2020 Gauteng Sport Team of the Year and was nominated in 8- categories in the 2020/21 Gauteng Sport Awards. Prior to joining the Lions Cricket Union, Wanele ran his own marketing, media and sponsorship consulting firm responsible for developing, acquiring, implementing and managing various sponsorships and clientele mainly in the entertainment industry.
He served as the MSG Group Sales Director responsible for generating significant advertising and sponsorship revenue as well as strengthening the group’s consumer marketing and trade position within corporate and public sector portfolio.
He headed up the SABC’s Commercial Enterprise Business Intelligence unit responsible for developing and implementing SABC Group Sales commercial and trade marketing strategy.
As the media agency practitioner, Wanele was part of the global WPP Plc group of companies GroupM SA as the Commercial Director for Nota Bene and Media edge: cia media agencies. He served as a non-executive board member for the creative agency Young & Rubicam South Africa as well as the MEC Group board member.
He is a founding board member of the Broadcast Research Council of South Africa (BRC SA), which is mandated to provide credible South African television and radio audience research.
Wanele considers himself as a passionate cricket fan who endeavours to use sport as a driver towards a sustainable, diverse and inclusive society. He holds a BCom Honours: BCom, BCTA (BCom Equivalent): Financial Management, National Diploma: Cost & Management and currently completing an MBA: Business and Marketing Management.
Congratulating the quartet on their appointments, CSA Chief Executive Officer, Pholetsi Moseki said: “CSA is intentional in turning the corner and reaching greater heights.
The appointment of these Executives is intended to strengthen CSA’s resolve and anchoring the administration with the best expertise on offer. “I am delighted that CSA has attracted this calibre of talent, which will change the fortunes of the organization into the future.
It is against this background that I congratulate the appointees for making it through the stringent recruitment process, which merited their appointments.
“They have indeed demonstrated their desire to serve this beautiful game in the different portfolio’s by bringing their capabilities to bear.” The Director of Cricket will assume duty on 1st July 2022 while the other three Executives will join on 1 st August 2022.