She qualifies as a non-executive director and is a member of the SES Committee. Her areas of expertise include economics and finance, audit, risk, compliance, law, governance and general business.
While she remains an executive director at UBI, she also serves as a non-executive director on the Board of African Rainbow Capital, a wholly owned subsidiary of UBI. Dr Simelane’s other board directorships include African Rainbow Minerals, where she is also Chair of the Social and Ethics Committee and a member of the Audit, Risk and Nominations, and the Non-executive Directors’ Committees. She also serves on the Boards of African Rainbow Energy and Power, and Mamelodi Sundowns Football Club.
Dr Simelane commenced her career at the University of Swaziland as a lecturer in Economics. Between 1998 and 2001, she was employed by the Department of Trade and Industry and the National Treasury. After that, she served in the capacity of Special Adviser: Economics, to the then Premier of Mpumalanga until mid-2004, when she assumed the position of Chief Executive of Ubuntu-Botho Investments (UBI), Sanlam’s empowerment partner, until 2016.
Through Mamelodi Sundowns Football Club, Dr Simelane was elected onto the Executive Committee of the Premier Soccer League in 2016. As a CIDA scholarship recipient and a Fulbright Fellow, Dr Simelane also served as a member of the Presidential Economic Advisory Panel under former President Thabo Mbeki until 2009.
Dr Simelane obtained her PhD in Economics at the University of Connecticut in the USA in February 1994 and her LLB from the University of South Africa in 2010.