Microsoft South Africa MD Mteto Nyati and former Google sub-Saharan Africa boss Stafford Masie have been appointed to the board of JSE-listed education and recruitment company AdvTech.
Nyati, who previously worked at IBM South Africa, and Masie, who is spearheading the development of an electronic payments device for smartphones called the Payment Pebble, join AdvTech as independent nonexecutive directors with immediate effect.
In a statement, AdvTech says its board took a decision in November 2013 to invite the two technology industry leaders to become directors of the company.
AdvTech chairman Leslie Maasdorp says in the statement that the pair’s “extensive experience in global business, finance and IT and their complementary range of skills will be of significant benefit” to AdvTech’s decision-making.
“They both have exceptional educational and business insight and will provide valuable input to the group, helping us to broaden the business and meet our long-term growth objective — in particular, our strategy in technology-led education,” Maasdorp says.
Masie was born and educated in South Africa before obtaining a BSc in computer science from Tel Aviv University in 1993. He has held senior executive positions at Novell in the US and South Africa and established Google’s presence in South Africa in 2006. He was appointed sub-Saharan Africa GM in 2007.
After leaving Google in 2009, he established his own business and is now an entrepreneur with a particular interest in early stage start-up businesses in the IT industry.
Nyati was born and completed his early education in the Transkei. He graduated with a BSc in mechanical engineering from the University of KwaZulu-Natal and completed further studies at both Wits Business School and Yale University.
He has spent the past 17 years in the IT industry, first with IBM, both in South Africa and abroad, becoming director of IBM Global Technology Services for Southern and Central Africa. In 2008, he joined Microsoft South Africa as MD, a position he still holds.
News of the appointments comes a month after AdvTech announced that its CEO, Frank Thompson, intends stepping down by the end of 2014. “The board plans to make an appointment and implement a handover well in advance of Frank stepping down in order to ensure a smooth transition,” it said in December. — (c) 2014 NewsCentral Media