Viola Manuel
An accomplished senior executive in both strategy and implementation, Viola Manuel has sat on numerous boards and been nominated for multiple awards.
Viola is adept at understanding the mechanisms for provoking economic growth, creating strong national and international networks, understanding public policy and participation processes especially at a community level, high level project management, engaging the media & civil society, advocacy, innovation, corporate governance, organisational sustainability and driving the pan African growth agenda.
Viola has specialised experience in adult education and achieved an assessor qualification from the Services SETA and a moderator qualification from TETA. AT SAA, she was appointed HOD for training and served there, designing courses, conducting Train the Trainer sessions and monitoring quality of the training delivered.
Viola has been nominated and placed for several awards, including IT Personality of the Year, Boss of the Year, Influential Women Award, SA’s Most Influential Women in Business & Government (twice nominated) and was short-listed for the Woman of the Year Award.
She has also been instrumental in several initiatives, including The ICT Census of the Western Cape, Women in IT, Youth in IT, VIP Graduates Club and several SMME Enterprise Development Projects.
Viola was CEO of the Cape Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Executive Director of The Cape IT Initiative, Member of the Western Cape Premier’s Council of Skills, Chair of the BUSA SMME chapter which she represented at NEDLAC, to mention a few of her previous roles.
She has written strategy and implementation documentation for the sports industry specifically WP rugby, WP cricket and the ICT sector.
Viola serves as the Vice Chair person at National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI), and Deputy Chair of the Cape Town Stadium, trustee for Iyanthelo and heads specialist committees on these boards. She has served on the Commercialisation, HR and Events and marketing subcommittee for the Cape Town Stadium. She also chairs the Audit and risk committee for the Cape Town Stadium.
She has two entrepreneurial ventures: G and V retail and Afriwellness.
Viola holds an MBA (Herriot Watt University, Scotland), HDipEd (UCT) and BA (UCT) and is looking forward to completing her DBA.
She is very proud of her most challenging life time role and that is to be the best mom she can, to her 12 yr old son, Shay.