WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP BY KOKETSO MAMABOLO
3 THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT
Honourable Thandi Modise H
onourable Thandi Modise has been in the public eye for several decades but, with everything we know about her, what about the things we don’t know about the former Speaker of the National Assembly? Here are three things you didn’t know about the Minister of Defence and Military Veterans. THE KNITTING NEEDLE GUERILLA “The Knitting Needle Guerilla” was what the Weekly Mail dubbed Honourable Thandi Modise in a March 1989 feature, by Thami Mkhawanzi, on the current Minister of Defence and Military Veterans. With first hand military experience, who better to have sitting at the helm of the Ministry tasked with protecting the free nation which Hon. Modise sacrificed so much for. CPUT CHANCELLOR In 2017, while still the Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces, the Minister succeeded former Finance Minister Trevor Manuel as the Chancellor of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. Hon. Modise is the first woman in this position. In attendance at the welcome ceremony was the Minister of Higher Education, Honourable Blade Nzimande, who noted: “One of the most important things precisely during these challenging times in the higher education sector, generally, and at CPUT, specifically, is that we need more government leadership to work together with student and worker leadership. It becomes therefore (sic) very important that she joins the higher education community at this point because we need her wisdom and dedication. She’s a very principled person and we need those like her to act as examples.”
36 | Public Sector Leaders | April 2022
