Looking for direction

Three SA university business schools are looking for full-time directors.

The University of Cape Town expects to take “several months” to find a successor to Walter Baets, who left the Graduate School of Business (GSB) last month after seven years in charge.

Port Elizabeth-based Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University’s (NMMU) business school is seeking a new director after Steve Burgess accepted an academic post at Wits Business School (WBS) in Johannesburg.

And North-West University (NWU) wants someone to run a new School of Business & Governance, following the merger of its Potchefstroom and Mafikeng business schools.

Baets left two years into a second fiveyear contract (see “A final reflection” on page 28), to head a new French school. He has been replaced on an interim basis by school academic director Geoff Bick until a full-time appointment is made.

Belgian-born Baets was appointed in 2009 to bring an international perspective and, in his words, to “shake up the school”. There is a growing view that the next incumbent should be appointed from within SA, to embed the changes Baets brought.

Bick says: “I intend to continue to implement a number of the programme and development initiatives that we have started, so that there is a smooth transition to his successor.” One of the changes Bick will oversee is the opening of a new GSB campus in Johannesburg.

Burgess, an American who formerly taught at the GSB, left NMMU this year after his five-year contract expired. Acting director Kobus Jonker, long-time head of the school’s MBA division, says the search for a successor has already begun.

At NWU, long-serving Potchefstroom school director Tommy du Plessis, who was due to retire at the end of 2016, will take charge of the enlarged business and governance school until next year or until a full-time appointment is made. The school will operate from three campuses, in Potchefstroom, Mafikeng and Vanderbijlpark.

At two other schools, appointments have already been made. Enslin van Rooyen, formerly of Pretoria University and the

Tommy du Plessis Waiting for a successor at merged North-West school