Van der Merwe obtained his B.Sc. Eng. and B.Sc. Eng. (Hons) in civil engineering from the University of Pretoria. He is also a graduate of the Harvard Business School’s Senior Executive Development programme.

He has worked in the public transport sector for more than 46 years. In 1994, he was appointed as the team leader of the strategic management team tasked with developing, structuring and establishing the new Department of Public Transport and Roads in Gauteng. He headed this department from 1995 to 2004.

Barnard has more than 30 years of experience in engineering, enterprise architecture and management, including extensive international industrial experience within various industries such as aerospace and defence, infrastructure, rail, ports, energy and nuclear, covering private, public and state-owned entities. She has a Bachelor of Science (Physics and Computer Science) from the North-West University and a Master of Information Technology Management from the University of Pretoria.

Sanne is Executive Director of CSIR Materials Science and Manufacturing (MSM).He joined the CSIR in January 2016 from an industry background of information technology (IT), telecommunications, electrical engineering and energy. Sanne is a board member of the Mandela Bay Composites Cluster.

As Vice President Corporate Offset Management for Rheinmetall AG, Van Gemert is responsible for the execution of Rheinmetall’s worldwide offset programs. In addition, he leads Rheinmetall’s international offset team that comprises 12 offset professionals. Van Gemert advises Rheinmetall’s defence business units on offset- and countertrade-related issues and reports to the Rheinmetall Defence board of directors at the head office in Düsseldorf.

In her role as Head of Women in Technology at General Electric (GE), Uzzell is developing and executing the company-wide strategy to accelerate the number of women in technical roles across GE’s engineering, digital, manufacturing, and product management functions. Her scope includes identifying game-changing moves that all technical functions can benefit from, aligning metrics to measure progress and leveraging global best practices.

Erasmus is the chief executive officer of the Directech group of companies. He founded the first Directech company in 1993. Erasmus started his career with a working bursary from Anglovaal where he studied electronics systems. After 10 years, he left Anglovaal to join Staro Process Control where he was one of four founding partners. Erasmus has a passion for engineering and technology and is an engineering specialist with over thirty years of experience.