The Fund was fortunate to attract a variety of skills which were able to flexibly work in different areas. Pillars were led by people with expertise in their respective fields and/or supported by technical review panels drawn from subject matters experts who brought a diversity of experience. The Fund was managed by a strong leadership team, overseen by an independent, highly respected board.
Right from the beginning everyone involved with the Fund leaned on their own networks for partners and volunteers. Nomkhita Nqweni was appointed as the Fund’s interim CEO. ENS provided legal, contracting and tax advisory services. In the initial phase EY committed a staff of about 35 people to run the back offices: it hosted and ran most of the technology, finance, and internal communications. Old Mutual Limited provided fund administration support, and John Hunt, global creative director of international advertising agency TBWA, assisted with developing a brand identity and a communications strategy at the Fund’s inception that would provide a consistent message and story.
EOH Holdings, a large provider of technology services, provided technical support and helped set up a website in the first few days, and global auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), committed to auditing the Fund. Paul Bondi who was CEO of Rothschild headed up the fundraising arm of the Fund, Nic Kohler who was CEO of Hollard took on the role of COO, and Nicola Galombik, who was an executive director of Yellowwoods at the time, headed up the disbursements section of the Fund. She brought in Tshikululu Social Investments as a partner. With their deep understanding of what actions would reach people at grassroots level, Tshikululu helped build the Fund’s impact strategy and framework in time for the first board meeting on 9 April 2020. In order to populate the three pillars: Dr Jonathan Broomberg, CEO of Discovery Health initially headed up the health pillar, followed by Heather Sherwin, Health and Impact Director at ELMA, and then led by Dr Gugu Ngubane from 2021. Thandeka Ncube initially headed up the Humanitarian Pillar. Thereafter, Wendy Tlou who had extensive experience in communications and marketing strategies took over the Behaviour Change and Communications pillar and was later requested to also head up the Humanitarian Pillar.
The Fund was fortunate in that it was initially able to attract a large number of volunteers and secondees from a variety of companies. As the Fund continued many returned to their jobs and the staffing consisted mainly of secondees resources were made up by a number of resources from National Business Initiative (NBI). These resources included people from various backgrounds who wanted to support the country in the fight against the pandemic. At one point there were over 200 people working pro bono or on a volunteer bases for the Fund.
The below image provides a view of resources within the Fund (note: this view was developed at a point in time and may not include key resources that had already left the Fund):
