Body of Trustees (BoT)

Dr Pravesh Debba, PhD:

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. He is currently the manager of Inclusive Smart Settlements and Regions at the CSIR.

Yoko Chhana:

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:

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.

Philip Steyn: Chairman of the ICCSSA Board

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).