Ms Liile Lerato Lekena
Ms Liile Lerato Lekena is a Director: Strategic Planning in the Directorate of Institutional Planning and Research (DIPR) of the Mangosuthu University of Technology. She previously worked as a Quality Advisor: Surveys and Institutional Research, Institutional Researcher, Senior Researcher, Evaluations Consultant, Academic Development Officer as well as being an Academic. The work in all the previous portfolios involved managing data analytics projects to inform planning, policy development, and decision-making towards institutional effectiveness and efficiency. She has written, presented and published articles in accredited conferences and journals both nationally and internationally. She was co-opted as an executive member of the SAAIR after hosting and chairing the SAAIR conference in 2019. She is currently the Deputy President for the SAAIR (2021-2022) and the President Elect (2023-2024).
Her main functions as a Director of strategic planning involve systematising the processes that enable the university to achieve its goals and objectives through facilitating institutional strategic planning. This comprises directing and overseeing the university’s strategic and long term goal planning function and advancing its strategy. In addition, she oversees the execution, monitoring and evaluation of the strategy. She also oversees academic planning and timetabling in the institution.
Mr Pritham Seethal hails from a small town in Northern Kwa-Zulu Natal, called Newcastle. He commenced his career early in IT and worked his way through the information technology landscape with passion and dedication. His career took off by allowing him varying exposure across SA and the African continent.
His IT and business management experience spans a period of 18 years from managing small to large work environments in IT Technical & Networking Services, Operations and Service Delivery. During one of his career engagements, he was outsourced to 60 % of the public sector which entailed working with various local and provincial government institutions in the South African landscape to design, implement and monitor IT Business systems.
The other 40 % of his outsourcing was to the private sector. He is also well versed in compliance and regulations aspects pertaining to IT governance. Being a seasoned IT professional he believes in continuously evolving and staying abreast with technological enhancements.
Pritham currently is the Head of IT Operations & Infrastructure at the Mangosuthu University of Technology. He has many certifications and accolades in the industry ranging from being a qualified Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer, Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator: Database Administration, International Alien Vault Security Engineer, International CompTIA PC Engineer and International CompTIA Network Engineer. Various formal qualifications under his belt also include Nexus Leadership (University of Pretoria: GIBS), National Diploma: IT (National Computer College), Bachelor of Commerce in Informatics & Business Management (UNISA) and a most recently completed IT Management certification at the University of Cape Town. Pritham has also achieved being the Chairperson: Student Representative Council (2005 – 2007 UNISA), Vice Chairman of the Employment Equity and Skills Development Forum (2015 -2017), he is a member of the Open Group: Enterprise Architecture Forum and the Institute of Information Technology Professionals of South Africa (IITPSA).
Mr Pritham Seethal
Mthokozisi Sydney Luthuli
First and foremost, Mthokozisi Sydney Luthuli is an MUT identified product who perceive himself as a dynamic and goal driven young man whose passion centres around publishing on issues that pertains to public service delivery, especially, that of disability grant disbursement. Further, he is enrolled for his final year of PhD: Specializing in Public Administration. He has published 7 scientific papers in reputable and DHET approved journals, both as a main author and as a co- author. He is also a full-time staff at the Durban University of Technology, employed in the capacity of a lecturer in the Department of Entrepreneurial Studies and Management, as of 2016. He has scooped NIHSS Scholarship to the value of R140 000.00 twice in a row, first in (2021) and again in (2022), Lecturer Bank SEDA funding (R50 000.00), and have been approved for another NIHSS R140 000.00 for the year 2023.
He is hopeful that he will complete his PhD by the end of 2022. More recently, he is engaged in several DUT Design Thinking projects, international collaboration, and entrepreneurship. More than anything, he attributes his success to Empowered Administrators Conference [EAC] from MUT and takes pride to the foundation MUT jointly laid thereof. Last, he is to travel to USA, Orlando-Florida and thereafter, Japan to presents his two scientific papers in October 2022 which forms part of his PhD.