Jerry Vilakazi

Jerry is the executive chairman of Palama, which he co-founded to facilitate investments in strategic private and listed companies.

He is a past CEO of Business Unity South Africa, during which period he served as a business representative at Nedlac and on various international business councils. Prior to this, he held various executive positions in government and in the private sector including that of managing director of the Black Management Forum (BMF) where he also served on the board of the BMF investment company. In 2009, Jerry was appointed to the Presidential Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment Advisory Council and was appointed as a Commissioner of the National Planning Commission in 2010. Jerry was chairman of the Mpumalanga Gambling Board from 2006 to 2015 and the State Information Technology Agency (SOC) Proprietary Limited until the end of his term in 2015. He previously served on the boards of PPC Limited, and Goliath Gold Limited as well as chairman of Netcare Limited and adviser to Citibank. He currently serves on the boards of Cell C Limited and Sibanye-Stillwater Limited where he also chairs the social and ethics committee.

Jerry joined the Board on 19 October 2011.