Professor Roy Marcus
Professor Roy Marcus has been the chairperson of the eta Awards since 2004, and a judge since 2003. He believes the awards showcase South Africa at its best.
Marcus is an honorary professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Johannesburg. He was appointed the Transvaal Industries professor of mechanical engineering in 1980 and shortly thereafter was appointed head of the School of Mechanical Engineering.
During his tenure at the University of the Witwatersrand as deputy dean of the Faculty of Engineering and dean of the Faculty of Engineering, he established the Materials Handling Research Unit unit and was the founding director of the first Science Park in South Africa at Frankenwald. Marcus played an active role in the development of the new government’s science and technology initiatives, acting as the ministerial advisor on science and technology and the chairperson of the National Advisory Council on Innovation.
He currently holds the position of chairperson of the Da Vinci Institute for Technology Management, a private postgraduate school of business specialising in the management of technology, innovation and people. He is also chairperson of the council of the University of Johannesburg, the chairperson of PTip and he was recently appointed a non-executive director of INesi.
Joan du Toit
Joan du Toit has been a member of the judging panel for more than 10 years. She was a senior researcher at the Institute for Futures Research until March 2007, where her focus was mainly on energy. She spent most of her time on the project “Environmental scanning and sce-nario development for long-term energy planning in South Africa”, a study commissioned by the department of energy.
She serves on the editorial committee of two annual, international energy conferences –Domestic use of energy and the Industrial and commercial use of energy. She has served as a member of the working group for the energy sector’s contribution to the national research and technology foresight project, and was one of the editors of its final report.
Du Toit has also participated in the mitigation options section of South Africa’s national reporting document under the United Nations framework convention on climate change and was responsible for compiling the final report for this section.
Alistair Schorn
Alistair Schorn has served as a judge since 2008. He holds a Master’s degree in international economics from the University of Pretoria. He is a director at Sustainability Consulting, a sustainability advisory practice based in Gauteng specialising in corporate sustainability, the green economy and renewable energy and energy efficiency.
From 2006 to 2011, he was the head of the emerging economies network at the Worldwide Fund for Nature, promoting environmentally sustainable economic development in emerging economies such as China, India and South Africa. Prior to this he spent 10 years at the department of trade and industry, working in the fields of export and investment promotion.
Schorn has been the co-author and editor of various publications, including most recently a report on the state of corporate integrated reporting in South Africa, published by the University of Pretoria’s Albert Luthuli Centre for Responsible Leadership. Since 2013 he has acted as an external research supervisor in sustainability-related topics for the MBA programme at the Gordon Institute of Business Science.
Lisa Reynolds
Lisa Reynolds was inspired to join the eta judging panel after winning the Woman in Energy — Industrial category in 2007 and becoming aware of the range and scope of energy projects in the different categories.
Reynolds has worked in the building industry for 13 years. She started in the insulation business and has moved into the interior building system industry. She has been involved in energy efficiency and its promotion since 2003. She has a BSc (chemistry) degree from the University of Witwatersrand and an MBA (strategic marketing) from the University of Hull. She also has a CEM certificate and is an accredited Green Star professional. She is the sustainability development executive of Saint-Gobain Construction Products.
Reynolds is part of the regulatory advisory group for the newly drafted national building regulation for energy efficiency in buildings, and was chairperson of the working group that drafted the supporting standards. She is working with the department of human settlements to assist with energy efficiency measures in the national norms and standards.
Professor Xiaohua Xia
Professor Xiaohua Xia has been a judge since 2009. He is a member of the Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Pretoria. His current focus of research is on energy modelling and optimisation, following his MEng study on short-term load forecasting. He is also the director of the South African national hub for the postgraduate programme in energy efficiency and demand-side management.
Xia was elected a fellow of the South African Academy of Engineering in 2005, an IEEE fellow in 2009, an NRF A-rated scientist in 2010 and a guest professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China, and Cheung Kong chair professor at Wuhan University, China.
He holds a PhD in automatic control theory and application from the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China. He is also a regular reviewer for journals and a guest speaker at conferences.
Professor LJ Grobler
Professor LJ Grobler is dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the North-West University, and is one of the founders of Energy Cybernetics. He was the 2007/08 president of the Association of Energy Engineers, based in Atlanta, US. He was the first non-American to become president.
He was one of the founders of the Southern African Association of Energy Efficiency and also a past president of the association. Grobler is certified as an energy manager and a measurement and verification professional by the Association of Energy Engineers. He is registered as a professional engineer with the Engineering Council of South Africa and received his PhD at the University of Pretoria.
He has authored and co-authored more than 40 local and international articles on energy-related topics; presented and co-presented more than 50 papers at local and interna- tional conferences and seminars on energy topics, and has conducted more than 100 industrial and commercial energy audits.
Dr Inno Davidson
Dr Inno Davidson became a judge in 2014. He is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers USA; he is a chartered engineer in the United Kingdom; and a registered, professional engineer with the Engineering Council of South Africa.
He is presently the Eskom Power Plant Engineering Institute co-ordinator and director, at the Eskom centre of excellence in HVDC engineering at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Davidson has more than 27 years of professional experience encompassing university teaching, research leadership and consulting.
Professor Dieter Holm
Professor Dieter Holm has been a judge in the eta Awards since their inception in 1985. He qualified as an architect at the University of Pretoria, where he obtained his Master’s and Doctoral degrees.
He became head of the Department of Architecture and directed the postgraduate studies and research of the faculty of the built environment. He was a council member of the Sustainable Energy Society of Southern Africa and secretary of the International Solar Energy Society.
Currently he is a consultant in sustainable development in the built environment. He is a firm believer in changing energy consumption behaviour, as it is far cheaper and faster to implement energy efficiency than it is to build new power stations.
Manfred Braune
Manfred Braune joined the judging panel in 2011. He has worked in the property industry (design and construction) for approximately 20 years in various roles: consulting engineer, green building consultant and, most recently, in his current role as chief technical officer at the Green Building Council of South Africa.
Braune started his career as a consulting electrical engineer designing various commercial buildings, hotels, hospitals and shopping centres with the WSP Group. He then launched WSP’s green building business, and became technical director for WSP Green by Design until August 2010.
Dr Tsakani Mthombeni
Dr Tsakani Mthombeni is a new addition to the judging panel. He currently holds the position of general manager: energy at The Technology Innovation Agency. He previously worked as a senior energy engineer within the technical division of Anglo American, tasked with promoting energy efficiency practices within the Anglo Group.
He also worked at Eskom, in the demand-side management department as a technical manager, where he introduced the national energy efficient electric motor rebate pro- gramme. He was also a co-chair of the Southern African power pool demand-side management working group.
Prior to joining Eskom, he was a research officer at the University of Cape Town in the Department of Electrical Engineering. Mthombeni holds a BSc (Hons) Elec Eng from the University of Cape Town and MSc and PhD degrees from Clarkson University, Potsdam, New York, both in electrical engineering.
He also holds several certificates in executive courses in strategy, management and board practices from the Gordon Institute of Business Science.
Tony Koenderman
Tony Koenderman is a leading commentator and analyst in the advertising and marketing industry, and has been writing about it for more than 20 years. He also manages and organises an annual conference, Tony Koenderman’s Advertising Brainstorm.
A graduate of Rhodes University in economics and politics, he has worked as a business and industrial editor on Financial Gazette, The Star, Sunday Times (Business Times), Financial Mail, Business Day and Finweek. He is now a specialist writer on advertising and marketing, and has edited and written annual supplements on the subject for more than 20 years, including the current Finweek annual and Tony Koenderman’s AdReview.
Fiona Macleod
Fiona Macleod joined the panel in 2013. She is the project leader and editor of the Mail & Guardian Greening the Future Awards and Investing in the Future Awards, flagships aimed at encouraging corporate social responsibility and investment. She also served terms on the judging panels of the SANParks Kudu Awards and The Green Trust Awards.
Macleod is currently editor of the Oxpeckers Centre for Investigative Environmental Journalism, Africa’s first journalistic investigation unit focusing on environmental issues. The centre combines traditional investigative reporting with data analysis and geo-mapping tools, and won the prestigious 2014 SAB EnviroMedia Award for Written Media (Print & Online).
Prior to founding Oxpeckers, Macleod served as environmental editor at the Mail & Guardian for 10 years, and was awarded the Nick Steele award recognising her con- tributions to environmental conservation through her pioneering reportage.
Dr Snowy Khoza
Dr Snowy Joyce Khoza joined the eta Awards judging panel in 2010, bringing with her more than 30 years’ senior management experience and a commitment to youth, women and small business development.
Khoza is the chief executive of Bigen Africa Group Holding, an infrastructure development company operating in Africa. Before this, she worked for 12 years as group executive at the Development Bank of Southern Africa. She chaired a number of public and private sector companies’ boards, including the Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority, Water Research Commission and Bihati Solutions, and was the first woman to chair these bodies.
Khoza is currently a member of the advisory boards of the Water Institute of the University of Pretoria, as well as SikelaXabiso (SKX) Audit Firm and a trustee of Woman’s Development Bank.
Having worked at the Energy Regulator of South Africa as an executive for regulatory policy and research, she believes renewable and all other alternative energy forms are critical to the economy.
Professor Ogian Dintchev
Professor Ogian Dintchev is a projects co-ordinator at the Centre for Energy and Electric Power at the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT). He is certified as an energy manager and a measurement and verification professional by the Association of Energy Engineers in the USA. He is a member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (UK) and a chartered engineer.
He is a team leader of TUT’s measurement and verification team contracted by Eskom’s energy audits section – assurance & forensics department. As such he and his team are involved in quantifying and reporting on the energy savings of various projects in the industrial, commercial and residential sectors in South Africa.
He is also involved in various community development projects aimed at implementation of renewable energy sources and the efficient and sustainable usage of energy.