The programme is led by director, Ms Kathy Nicolaou-Manias, an experienced policy development, economic and technical advisor. Kathy held a number of different positions within South Africa’s public services including an Economic Development Technical Advisor at Treasury’s Government Technical Advisory Centre, Head of the Illicit Flows Unit at the Financial Intelligence Centre, Economic Advisor to the MEC of Economic Development in Gauteng and Head of Beneficiary Transfers at the South African Social Security Agency. She has provided technical advice to numerous donors and multi-lateral agencies and is UNECA’s Regional Technical Advisor on Illicit Financial Flows. From 2017 to 2022 she was the institutional capacity building expert for the Capacity Building Programme for Employment Promotion, where she provided technical support on Jobs Summit, the design of the SRD350 grant, the Presidential Employment Stimulus and the Basic Package of Support to Youth, to mention a few. She also has extensive social assistance, labour and infrastructure experience where she worked as a policy analyst at the Development Bank of Southern Africa.

Kathy is also experienced in public finance, public administration and risk management having worked with a number of different public sector organisations including the National Treasury and the Public Financial Management for Improved Service Delivery Programme (FMISD)

Kathy has a Masters in Economics from the University of the Witwatersrand.