AIA is a management consultancy founded in 2002 by Dawn Mokhobo, Tim Hough and a team of experienced consultants from leading firms, off the back off Project Siyakha: the SARS Turnaround.
Our success has been in understanding the unique and dynamic environments within which we operate and developing and executing appropriate solutions to meet these needs. We recognised Capacity Building as being critical for sustainable delivery of our projects and through this designed and executed what would become one of the largest and most successful Public-Sector management training programmes in South Africa: Project Khaedu. Over 5000 middle and senior managers across all spheres of government were trained using the Action Learning methodology, aiding in real and sustainable development.
As the evolution towards digital increased, we invested significant resources in building our digital capability: in terms of the tools, products and services required by our clients. Business enablement through strategic and performance management was identified as being of particular interest, due to our experience of both the successes and failures and impact on overall business performance. As we have broadened our capabilities, we have always remained true to who we are. To this day, advisory across the management consulting disciplines has been at our core. Our team has nurtured and grown a reputation for world class delivery, having successfully delivered on large scale Strategy, Operations Improvement and Organisational Development projects for a wide variety of clients across industries and sectors.
After nearly two decades in the industry, AIA has matured by deepening its focus areas of excellence and industry expertise while broadening our capabilities. We will always view our singular purpose as continually walking the journey of progress, hand in hand, with our clients.
Ms Dawn Mokhobo was one of the founding members of AIA. She is one of South Africa’s leading business-women, with a successful and pioneering career spanning the public, private and parastatal sectors. Her talents and accomplishments were recognised by her appointment as the first African woman to the management board of Eskom, as Executive Director in charge of Growth and Development.
In 1993 she won the prestigious Business Woman of the Year Award, while at the same time being honoured with an invitation to serve as one of the Independent Electoral Commissioners who ran South Africa’s first democratic elections.
She is a Chairperson of Wesizwe Platinum Pty (Ltd) and serves on the boards of Engen Limited, Sabvest Pty (Ltd) and The Altron Group. Ms Mokhobo previously served as an Independent Non-Executive Director of Massmart Holdings Limited, Sanlam (Pty) Ltd, The Tsepo Group (as chairperson), Metropolitan Life Pty (Ltd).
Hasnayn Ebrahim is the Managing Director of AIA and leads the Strategy and Digital Practices. With a BSc. Honours in Engineering from the University of Witwatersrand, Hasnayn brings well over a decade of practical, hands-on experience. His previous engineering and operations management experience has given him a sound understanding in operational efficiency, process re-engineering, cost optimisation and the development of practical solutions through analytical means.
Hasnayn has focused on Strategy development and execution since 2010 and has advised blue-chip companies, government departments, parastatals & State-Owned Entities in corporate and business strategy, organisational restructuring and turnarounds, African focused growth strategies, regulatory and compliance strategies, market entry and market demand studies, mergers & acquisitions, project finance and financial modelling, stakeholder engagement and facilitation of strategic and board workshops.
Yasser Ditta is a Director at AIA and has over a decade of hands-on experience in operational efficiency, capacity building and organisational transformation projects in the public, parastatal and private sectors.
Yasser recognises the importance of client capacity in delivery and implementation of strategic solutions. This coupled with the critical importance of building skills and sustainability with our clients, has driven Yasser to lead from the front on our Action Learning based, capacity building assignments at Executive, Senior and Middle management levels. Yasser also leads our sister-company, Resonance Institute of Learning, a training company offering a variety of SETA-accredited and customised training courses.
Mandla Mvelase is a Director at AIA and senior business leader with over 15 years of senior management and executive experience. Mandla has extensive experience across sectors, with many years spent within the Financial Services sector. He has served as the acting CEO and Chief Strategy Officer of the Road Accident Fund (RAF), the General Manager of Group Marketing and Corporate Affairs for Metropolitan Holdings Limited.
He also provided oversight of the integration of African Bank, Credit Indemnity and African Bank Miners credit brands into a single brand. Other positions include a Main Market Channel Manager at South African Breweries, a Retail Network Developer and a PR and Sponsorship Manager at BP Southern Africa, key positions that provided him the broad-based experience necessary to steer an organisation in the right direction.
Sarika Bhana is a an Industrial Psychologist by profession, registered as an Independent Practitioner with the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA), an HR Practitioner the South African Board for People Practices (SABPP) and a member of the Society for Industrial and Organisational Psychology of South Africa (SIOPSA).
Sarika has experience across the multiple sectors: she has focused her attention on the Public Sector (Local & National) where she offers advisory services in Organisational Design and Development, Specialised HR Services, Operating Models, Business Process Reengineering, and Strategy Facilitation. She also has experience across financial services, insurance and banking industries, as well as international companies within the IT and telecommunications industries, local mining and energy sectors having offered services such as leadership development and strategy alignment facilitation.
Since 2002, we have delivered on projects of national and international significance for some of South Africa’s largest Private and Public Sector entities.
We have conducted large scale transformational projects for national SOEs and Government Departments while providing strategic advisory on multi-billion rand projects for multi national corporates.
With broad industry experience across various sectors, our core focus has been the public sector. This deep experience across all three spheres of government, has given us a unique perspective of the challenges faced.
Our success comes from the values that we espouse and the character that we develop. Service is one of our core company values. In our development of staff, we focus on developing human beings who care. Human beings that care about each other and critically our communities.
AIA strongly believes in giving back to the community in order to contribute to the transformation of our society and economy. We offer pro-bono consulting work to SMMEs, NPOs and Start-ups; as well as mentoring and internships to young, previously disadvantaged individuals. Our consultants are passionate about the work we do, and service allows each consultant to re-connect with communities and causes that are meaningful to us.
AIA employs many young staff as part of the company’s commitment to youth development, giving valuable work experiences to new hires. However, more than just professional development, the culture at AIA also promotes the personal development of staff as holistic, well-rounded individuals.
