GCRO appoints a new Executive Director

The GCRO is delighted to announce the appointment of our new Executive Director, Mr Rashid Seedat from 1 June 2021.

Rashid joins GCRO from the Gauteng Office of the Premier (OoP), where he worked since 2011 as the Head of the Gauteng Planning Division. Here he was responsible for strategic, spatial and infrastructure planning, as well as performance monitoring and evaluation, for the Gauteng Provincial Government. From 2016 he also headed the Delivery Support Unit in the OoP, designed to set priority targets and accelerate delivery across provincial departments. In this capacity as a senior provincial official, Rashid has had a longstanding relationship with the GCRO as a previous Board member.

Rashid has a long history of involvement in urban struggles, and work on urban development and local government, starting as an activist in the 1980s, then as employee of Planact, and subsequently as councillor and official in the emerging system of post-apartheid local government in Johannesburg. Before joining the Gauteng Provincial Government, Rashid headed the Central Strategy Unit in the Executive Mayor’s Office at the City of Johannesburg, a position he held for over a decade.

In his various positions in provincial and local government, Rashid has overseen a wide range of research projects and surveys to underpin the design of new policies, long term development strategies, and service improvement programmes. He also has a wealth of experience working on the international stage. In recent years this has included support to the Premier of Gauteng in his role as Co-President of Metropolis, with a portfolio focused on social cohesion; localising the SDGs and the new urban agenda; and building a network of African city-regions through the Forum of African Metropolises.

Rashid has a long standing intellectual interest in: the history of minority communities' struggles against apartheid; the social and spatial dimensions of minority communities' displacement by the Group Areas Act, and the dynamics of their gradual return to the suburbs in the democratic era; as well as the position of sub-national government in systems of intergovernmental relations. He made contributions to the Integrated Urban Development Framework (IUDF), and also engaged in the development of Chapter 8 of the National Development Plan (NDP) on the national space economy.

Rashid is a trustee of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation and was a member of the Council for the University of the Witwatersrand until the point at which he joined GCRO. He has achieved a Master of Science (MSc) in Development Planning, and a Master of Management (MM) in Public and Development Management, both from the University of the Witwatersrand.

Some endorsements for the new appointment:

Dr Rob Moore, outgoing GCRO Executive Director, has strongly welcomed the appointment:

“Rashid Seedat has had a long and very productive relationship with the GCRO and understands its contribution to the policy-research terrain extremely well. He has personally driven major policy development initiatives in the city-region, and he is very well positioned to direct the strength of the GCRO to fresh achievements into the future.”

Prof Saurabh Sinha, GCRO Board Chair and DVC: Research and Internationalisation, University of Johannesburg:

“On behalf of the GCRO Board, I convey our congratulations to Mr Rashid Seedat, our incoming Executive Director. Following Mr Seedat’s prolific work in the world of policy, he brings this experience to the research-policy nexus environment fostered by the GCRO. We look forward, together with the GCRO team, to further the impact of this unique combination for the province and beyond.”

Prof. Zeblon Vilakazi, the Vice-Chancellor, Principal of Wits and previous GCRO Board Chair:

“We welcome the appointment of Rashid Seedat as the new Executive Director of the GCRO, and look forward to working with him in this new capacity. We are confident that the GCRO will continue to use its strategic intelligence to support the Gauteng City-Region and other entities, and ultimately to advance the public good.”