Staff and Associates

Nazeema Mohamed brings a wealth of experience in the area of social justice in higher education and university transformation. She has served as Director of Policy Development and Support in the Department of Education, the Coordinator of the American Council on Higher Education’s strategic planning support initiative for Historically Black Universities, Transformation Manager and Director at the University of Cape Town and the University of the Witwatersrand, and Programme Officer for the social justice and universities programme area of the Ford Foundation’s Southern Africa office. Ms. Mohamed has served on several ministerial committees in higher education. She serves as a member of the Council of the University of Cape Town. She is an experienced facilitator and trained life coach, with a Masters degree in Higher Education Management from the University of London.

Feryal has qualifications in public relations, corporate governance and citizenship, and a postgraduate qualification in management studies at the Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town.

Her former work experience includes 23 years at the multi-national oil major BP Southern Africa, where she was responsible for the corporate social investment strategy; implementation of employee engagement programmes, and monitoring and evaluation of CSI projects in eight sub-saharan countries. Feryal led an international non-profit organisation that uses soccer as a platform to educate South Africans about healthy lifestyles and the prevention of HIV/AIDS. She served on a number of boards of non governmental organisations in various capacities, including, chairperson, treasurer and secretary. These organisations focused on a number of sectors including education, road safety, child care, youth development, sports development and community development. She is an advisor, trainer and speaker on nonprofit operations, organisational governance and resilience, leveraging on her skills and practical experience as a nonprofit leader for over 20 years.

Having worked in multi-cultural leadership positions in Mauritius, Canada and South Africa in for-profit and government sectors, Soraya bridged into the nonprofit sector when she joined Inyathelo as its Finance Director. Her current portfolio includes the management of Finance, IT, HR and Facilities. What Soraya values most about her work at Inyathelo is the opportunity to help grow local South African philanthropy and to advance civil society organisations by using her business skills and financial expertise. Soraya holds a BSc Honours degree in Accounting and an MBA from the Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town.