Directors
Students
Research Associates
Prof Willem Boshoff
Willem Boshoff is co-director of the CCLE and associate professor of economics at Stellenbosch University. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from Stellenbosch and an MSc in management research from Oxford. Willem has published extensively on competition policy, with specific emphasis on market definition and the economics of collusion. He has extensive experience in advising South African corporates on competition policy matters. He received the ESSA prize for best doctoral dissertation in 2012, is a Commonwealth Scholar and an NRF-rated researcher. Willem is the editor of the Studies in Economics and Econometrics. Willem collects rare South African books and is a wildlife enthusiast.
Prof Philip Sutherland
Helanya Fourie
Johannes Paha
Thomas Fagart
Thomas Fagart is a data scientist at Eulidia in Paris and research associate of the Centre. Thomas was closely associated with the CCLE between 2017 and 2019, as a post-doctoral fellow. His research focuses on the impact of capacity building on imperfect competition, with application in environmental and competition policies. Thomas graduated from Paris School of Economics in June 2016. He was awarded the Aguirre-Basualdo Award from the chancellery of Paris Universities, a prestigious French prize, for his Ph.D. dissertation in economics. Thomas also likes creating some mixture of the South African and French kitchen.
Roan Minnie
Roan Minnie is a researcher from Despatch, South Africa. Roan completed a MCom in Economics (cum laude) with a research project on “Can competition regime effectiveness be measured – A multidimensional descriptive anlaysis”. Currently, he is enrolled in a PhD program at Stellenbosch University with research interests in abuse of dominance in non-traditional markets and excessive pricing. When not working hard at his studies, Roan is an enthusiastic baker and hopes to release his own recipe book someday.
Wihan Marais
Wihan is a PhD student at Stellenbosch University, where he also completed his BCom (Law), BComHons (Economics) and MCom Cum Laude (Economics) degrees. He is currently researching the increasing concentration of ownership of the global supply of mobile telecommunications services by large multinational investors. Other research includes simulated retail consolidation in vertically related markets and the caregiver’s burden among informal caregivers in rural South Africa. When Wihan is not in the CCLE, he is acting as an ad hoc economics consultant, watching foreign films and trying to make music.
Ronan Morris
Ronan is a postgraduate Economics student with an interest in Competition Regulation. This is exemplified by his Honours’ Thesis, which is a paper concerned with whether traditional competition analysis is able to adequately regulate the large internet platforms. Besides his passion for this, he also enjoys listening to indie music while walking around Stellenbosch.
Katherine Stainton
Katherine is a Masters in Economics student at Stellenbosch University with an interest in competition economics and the dynamic relationship between economic analysis and legal frameworks. Her research spans diverse areas including the evolution of theories of harm in South African merger control, the integration of environmental considerations into merger assessments, dynamic and potential competition analysis, digital market regulation, and data-related remedies in digital platform markets.
In her spare time, you will find her reading, trail running in the mountains, or horseback riding.
Annerie Bredenkamp
Annerie Bredenkamp is a master student in Economics at Stellenbosch University with a keen interest in competition economics. She holds a BComm (Law) degree and completed her LLB cum laude while participating in various vacation programmes. Her honours research focused on anti-competitive effects and methods to assist courts in dating such effects. She upholds a balanced social lifestyle and enjoys staying active. Second career options for her always involved being a dolphin trainer by day and a street racer by night.
Matlhogonolo Timothy Mashitisho
Matlhogonolo Timothy Mashitisho is a post graduate Economics student at Stellenbosch University. He obtained a Bachelor’s of Arts in Industrial Sociology and Jazz Studies from the University of Cape Town and a Batchelor of Commerce from the University of Stellenbosch.He has a keen interest in Managerial Economics as well as Competition Policy within the Arts. Recreationally, Timothy can be found playing saxophone, reading, spending time with friends and spending time in nature
Prince Changole
Rossouw van Jaarsveld
Tapera Muzata
Nicola Theron
Nicola Theron is an extraordinary professor at the Economics Department, University of Stellenbosch and managing director at Econex, an economic consulting firm based in Stellenbosch. She holds a Masters degree in Economics cum laude from the University of Pretoria, and a PhD (Economics) from the University of Stellenbosch.
Prof. Theron has been actively involved in competition economics for the past 17 years, both in an academic and consulting capacity. Prof Theron teaches competition economics and industrial organisation at undergraduate and graduate levels. She is also involved in study guidance for graduate students and regularly contributes to the academic debate through papers at conferences and publications in leading journals.
Prof. Theron has provided expert economic advice to many of the large corporations in South Africa, as well as to the competition authorities. Some high-profile competition cases in which Prof. Theron provided expert testimony before the Tribunal include: SAA/ Nationwide (for SAA), Senwes (for the Commission), BATSA/ JTI (for BATSA), Primedia/Kaya FM (for Primedia), Protector (for MediClinic), Kansai/ Freeworld (for the Commission), Life Healthcare (for Life), and most recently for Computicket (for Computicket).
Prof. Theron has also acted as an expert witness before other regulatory bodies, e.g. before the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA), on mobile termination rates and the proposed Vodacom/ Neotel merger, and before The National Energy Regulator of SA (Nersa), on pipeline tariffs).
She also served as a part-time member of the Competition Tribunal during 2008 and 2009. She has again been listed as an expert economist by the GCR Who’s Who of Competition Lawyers and Economists (2017).
Wawa Nkosi
Wawa Nkosi is a Ph.D candidate at Stellenbosch University. She holds a Masters and Honours degree in Economics from the University of Stellenbosch and a BCom Econometrics degree from the University of Pretoria. Her Masters and Honours research focused on poverty in South Africa. She aims to link this to competition economics in her Ph.D research with particular focus on the African context. While pursuing her Masters, Wawa participated in a rigorous leadership development program, South African Washington International Program, leading her to intern at the International Finance Coprporation in Washington D.C.
Prior to joining the Ph.D program, Wawa worked as an Economic Analyst at Econex, a Stellenbosch-based consulting firm specialising in competition and applied economics. Here she was exposed to projects in the telecommunications, health, broadcasting, alcoholic beverages, mining and entertainment sectors. Wawa enjoys planning networking and social events and hopes to someday return to her passion for choral singing.
Thomas Janisch
Thomas is a junior economist at the South African Reserve Bank, where he is part of the research department. He completed his BCom Honours in Economics at Stellenbosch cum laude in 2023 and was awarded the CGW Schumann medal for top student in the EMS faculty. His honours thesis explored competitiveness implications of price parity clauses in digital platform markets. After hours, Thomas is a keen long-distance runner and dreams of a sub 3-hour marathon.
Rachel Jafta
Rachel Jafta (PhD) is Professor (Emeritus) in Economics at the University of Stellenbosch, where she lectures on green trade and industrial policy and Economics of Technological Change. Her research interests include the intersection between Competition Economics and the Economics of Innovation, Social entrepreneurship and innovation, and Black Economic Empowerment. She studied at the Universities of the Western Cape, UNISA (Spanish & Italian), and Stellenbosch in South Africa, Università Luigi Bocconi in Milan, Italy, Harvard Business School, Europass Language Academy, Florence, Italy, St. Gallen University, Switzerland, and Stanford Graduate School of Business.
She is a director of various companies, including NASPERS and PROSUS and founder, and chair of several Community engagement initiatives, amongst others the Media24 Rachel’s Angels Mentorship Programme, the Cape Town Carnival and WeCode24. She is the chair of the Media24 board of directors.
She serves on the Governance Committee of the Bureau for Economic Research and is a longstanding member of the International Advisory Council of Fundação Dom Cabral Business School in Brazil.