Personal 
Date of Birth: 31 January 1956

Positions

• Member of the NEC from 1991 (Re-elected in 1994/97/99/02 and 2007)
• Member of Parliament since 1994
• Minister Trade and Industry 1994 to 1996
• Minister of Finance of the Republic of South Africa from 4 April 1996 to 10 May 2009
• Minister in the Presidency for the National Planning Commission 2009–2014

Academic Qualifications

• Matriculated from Harold Cressy High School, Cape Town
• National Diploma in Civil and Structural Engineering, from the Peninsula Technikon
• Executive Management Programme from Stanford National University, Singapore

Career/Positions/Memberships/Other Activities

• Part of a youth movement that attempted to launch a bus boycott across all townships of the Western Cape (1975)
• Initiated a community newsletter entitled "Kenfacs" in the townships of Kensington/Factreton, the newsletter was used as a basis for community organisation around a series of civic issues (1979)
• Part of a group who initiated the first community newspaper “Grassroots” (1980)
• Active in bringing together a number of Parents Supporting Committee which were formed to generate community support for school boycotts
• General Secretary of the Cape Areas Housing Action Committee (1981)
• Regional Secretary and National Executive Member of the United Democratic Front (UDF) (1983)
• Repeatedly detained without trial or placed under house arrest, spending a total of 35 months in detention for these activities (1985 - February 1990)
• Employed with the Mobil Foundation as a Policy Manager on Entrepreneurial and Community evelopment (May 1989)
• Elected to full-time office in the ANC (August 1991)
• Appointed as Head of the ANC's Department of Economic Planning (1991)
• Minister of Trade and Industry (1994 - 3 April 1996)
• Appointed to the Advisory Committee of the United Nations (UN) Initiative for Trade Efficiency (August 1994)
• Governor on the Board of the World Bank, African Development Bank Group and Development Bank of Southern Africa
• Chairman of the Board of Governors of the International Monetary Fund at Annual meetings in Prague in September 2000
• Chair of the Development Committee of the World Bank (November 2001 to September 2005)
• Served as Special Envoy to the Secretary-General, UN for the Conference on Financing for Development, held in Monterrey, Mexico from 18-20 March 2002
• Appointed as Commissioner in the International Task Force on Global Public Goods (May 2003)
• Served as a Commissioner in the Commission for Africa from 2004 until 2005
• Served on the Commission on Growth and Development as a Commissioner from 2006 until 2008
• Chaired the G-20 meetings (November 2007)
• Appointed Special Envoy for development finance by the United Nations Secretary General Mr Ban Ki Moon in May 2008
• Installed as Chancellor of the Cape Peninsula University of Cape Town in August 2008

Awards/Presentations/Bursaries

• Elected by the World Economic Forum as a Global Leader for Tomorrow (January 1994)
• Awarded the Africa Prize by the German Africa Foundation, jointly with the then South African Minister of Finance, Derek Keys (September 1994)
• Named Euromoney's African Finance Minister of the year (1997)
• Inducted as a member of South African Academy of Engineering (February 2001)
• Doctorate of Commerce honoris causa from University of Stellenbosch (December 2001)
• Doctorate of Commerce honoris causa from University of the Western Cape (March 2002)
• Doctorate of Technology honoris causa from Peninsula Technikon (March 2002)
• Doctorate of Technology honoris causa from Technikon South Africa (November 2002)
• Doctorate of Economics honoris causa from University of Natal (April 2003)
• Doctorate of Technology honoris causa from Free State Technikon (2003)
• Awarded Johannesburg Press Association Newsmaker of the year for 2005
• Doctorate of Law honoris causa from Rhodes University (April 2006)
• Presidential award by the Institute of Personnel Management (IPM), Johannesburg (October 2006)
• Management Excellence Award (MANEX) by Wits Business School (October 2006)
• Awarded the Africa Finance Minister of the Year (2007)
• Awarded the Woodrow Wilson Public Service Award (2008)