Board Members

Dr Pravesh Debba, PhD: Chairman

Dr Pravesh Debba was born in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. He obtained a BSc degree with majors in Mathematics and Statistics from the University of KwaZulu Natal (UKZN) in 1991. He completed an Honours degree in Statistics from UKZN in 1992. He was then appointed at UKZN in the Statistics Department in 1993 and at the University of South Africa (UNISA) in 1994. In 1998, he completed an MSc degree in Biostatistics at Universiteit Hasselt in Belgium.

He was awarded a full scholarship from the Flemish Ministry of Education during this period. He then joined UKZN as a lecturer in Statistics in 2000. He completed his Ph.D. in Statistics in 2006 from the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation ITC and Wageningen University in the Netherlands. He was awarded a scholarship from ITC and grants from NRF Thuthuka during 2003–2008. In 2007, he returned to Unisa as an associate professor in the Statistics Department. In 2008, he joined the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research CSIR as a senior statistical researcher and promoted to principal statistical researcher in 2009.

Yoko Chhana: Chief Executive Officer

Yoko Chhana holds a Master of Science (Mathematical Statistics) from University of KwaZulu Natal. She is a staff member in the School of Statistics and Actuarial Science at the University of Witwatersrand and the Past President of the South African Statistical Association

Valentina Litvine: Financial Director

Valentina Litvine holds a Masters in Statistics from the University of Kent at Canterbury, United Kingdom. Since graduating, she has worked in Marketing and sales forecasting, as a consultant in the banking industry, and is currently working as a Statistical Analyst at ABSA bank. Ms Litvine is the treasurer of ICCSSA.

Vanessa Ndlovu: Secretariat and Marketing

Vanessa Ndlovu has a BCom (Economics and Econometrics), BCom Hons (General Economics), an MCom (Economics) and is currently doing her PhD (Economics) with thesis topic: The Role of Renewable Energy in determining the optimal Energy mix for South Africa. She is a member of the Economic Society of South Africa (ESSA) and a member of the African Econometric Society (AES). She is currently a Senior Econometrician in the Centre of Energy Analytics at RT&D Eskom.

Paul Mokilane: Marketing

Paul Mokilane holds a BSc, BSc honours and MSc in Statistics from the University of South Africa and a Post graduate Diploma in Science from the University of Witwatersrand. He worked in the Banking industry, education sector, telecommunication sector, research and in the manufacturing industry as a statistician. He is currently working at the CSIR as a senior statistician in the Built Environment.

Aneshan Ramaloo: Director

Aneshan Ramaloo is a Senior Business Solutions Manager for Advanced Analytics at SAS. As a specialist in the Advanced Analytics practice, he adds value to clients by showcasing SAS’s analytical suite of offerings through client engagements, POC’s, demos and events. He previously headed up the Analytics division at Genesis Analytics providing Analytical based consulting services across the consumer life cycle.

Prior to this, Aneshan was based in Cape Town where he worked for Direct Axis as a Credit Risk Specialist.
Prior to working at Direct Axis, Anesh worked as a Credit Risk Specialist at the RCS Group having come from the Old Mutual Group working as a Market Risk Analyst

Aneshan holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Mathematics and Statistics from the University of KwaZulu Natal, as well as a Bachelor of Science Honours degree from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) majoring in Computational and Applied Mathematics.

Prof Igor Litvine, PhD: Director

Professor Igor Litvine holds a PhD in Mathematical statistics, MSc in Applied Mathematics and a diploma in Computer sciences from Kiev University. He is involved in a number of projects with various entities: Energy Demand Forecasting – Eskom; Time-Series Analysis with Paired Comparison Models; Statistical Analysis of Risks in Energy Sector due to Weather Exposure (TESP); Statistical Forecasting Modeling in Renewable Energy Generation; Investment Challenge and Investment Clinic (jointly with JSE); Customer Behaviour (jointly with FNB).

Prof Litvine has published 6 books, 45 papers in refereed journals and 3 software packages. His fields of professional expertise are lecturing, research, management, consulting and computer programming and information systems. His fields of expertise are paired comparison, financial statistics, statistics of risk, Statistics in Energy, Sport Statistics and Statistics in Gambling.

Prof Litvine is currently the Head of the Centre of Expertise in Forecasting at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. He sits on the board of ICCSSA.

Philip Steyn: Director

Philip Steyn has a BSc in Business Mathematics and Informatics, BSc Honours in Computer Science and an MSc in Business Mathematics and Informatics (Majors: Bank Risk Management, Data-Mining & Statistics). While studying, he lectured at the PU for CHE and also at the Vaal-Driehoek Technikon. He completed his MSc with a project at ABSA in the field of Event-Driven Marketing. In July 2007 he started Multisoft Consulting (PTY) Ltd. Before starting his own consulting firm, he worked in various statistical and analytical implementation roles in the consulting services and financial services industries. The positions include senior manager of Credit Risk, and Management and Quantitative Modelling consulting at IQ Risk, as well as various roles at ABSA. His first role at ABSA was in the field of Customer Relationship Management and then in Enterprise-Wide Risk Management Development (recently changed to Group Credit, Portfolio Decision and Analysis). Mr Steyn sits on the board of ICCSSA.

Frans Koning: Director

Frans Koning has an MSc in Mathematical Statistics from the University of the Free State. He is currently the Academic Head of the Department of Actuarial Science at the University of the Free State and a Senior Lecturer in the Department. He is an affiliated member of the Institute of Actuaries in the UK and a Fellow of the Actuarial Society of South Africa (FASSA). He has been a member of the Board and the Chairman of the Risk Committee of African Unity Life Insurance since 2015.

He has supervised many Honours students (15+) in research projects and at the moment he has 3 full time Masters students under his supervision. He is busy with his PhD on Long Term Care Insurance in a South

Dr Hlabi Morudu, PhD: Director

Dr Hlabi Mohlabane Dunstan Morudu has extensive experience in the collection and interpretation of statistics in South Africa: initially for monetary policy formulation at the South African Reserve Bank (1994–2004). Dr Morudu currently works at the Department of Statistics, Statistics South Africa as the Chief Director: Research & Policy Analysis. He does research in Economic Geography, Econometrics and Development Economics