Vuyelwa Mantyi joined the Eastern Cape Department of Economic Development, Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEDEAT) in July 2022 as Regional Director for the Amathole Region.

She has had a rich career spanning over 20 years in the private and public sectors in the areas of digital strategy development and execution, programme management, public policy development and monitoring and evaluation.

Before joining the Department, she was responsible for integrated strategy, planning and monitoring and evaluation supporting the economic development cluster.

Notable projects include leading the development of the Provincial Medium Term Strategic Framework for the sixth term of government and the first provincial mandate paper and prioritisation framework.

Vuyelwa is no stranger to the DEDEAT family, having been the head of strategy and risk management at the Eastern Cape Parks and Tourism Agency, support to the chief operating officer at DEDEAT and deputy director at the DEDEAT 2010 Projects Unit.

She served on the European Union and Presidency’s Programme to Support Pro-Poor Policy Development, which assists policy-makers in systematically harnessing the best available evidence to inform the policy-making process through research and partnerships with academia, think tanks and the public sector.

Currently, she serves as the Eastern Cape representative on the Statistics Council of South Africa where she is also a member of the Strategy Committee.

One of her favourite leadership quotes is: “No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy if you're playing a solo game, you'll always lose out to a team.” Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn.