Geoffrey Mvuleni Qhena was born in Soweto on the 4th of November 1965. He has been the CEO of the Industrial Development Corporation of SA Limited (IDC), the leading development finance institution in South Africa, since 2003. He is a Chartered Accountant by profession having qualified in 1993 and a member of the SA Institute of SA’s (Saica). He also holds a certificate in Advanced Tax Certificate from the University of South Africa. He lectured at the University of Johannesburg (former Vista University) and was a Senior Manager in the restructuring department of Transnet before being appointed at the IDC as the Chief Financial Officer in 2003. Geoffrey Qhena has held various other positions on boards of major companies and is currently the Non-Executive Director of Nozal in Mozambique. Mr Qhena is the chairman of Foskor, one of the world’s largest producers of phosphate
and phosphoric acid. He also serves on the board of Acerinox, a leading worldwide player in stainless steel manufacturing with an office in Madrid, Spain. He is married to Esther Nomvula Nkosi with whom he has three sons. His main objectives at the IDC are to promote entrepreneurs and thereby stimulate job creation, focusing on helping new SMEs he sees potential in.
The Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) is a state-owned national finance institution that has helped companies from empowerment projects to small farming companies by providing them with finance to gain a hold in export markets. They have also funded parastatals such as Eskom, by investing in power plants.
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