The University of Johannesburg’s (UJ) College of Business and Economics (CBE), set to elevate commerce professions in South Africa, was launched on Monday, 21 August 2017. The College includes the Johannesburg Business School (JBS), one of the largest in Africa. The CBE comprises of six schools which serve 19 500 full-time students and a further 6 600 part-time continuing education students, totalling about 40% of UJ student enrolment.

UJ opened the doors of the College on 1 July 2017.

The CBE was formed by combining the innovative strengths of the previous Faculty of Economic and Financial Sciences, and Faculty of Management.

Speaking at the launch, Prof Daneel van Lill, acting Executive Dean of the CBE, said that UJ has established itself as an institution of global excellence and world-class stature, while providing accessible higher education. “A week prior to the CBE’s launch, UJ debuted among the Top 500 global universities, ranked in the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) released by the Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. This ranking placed UJ in the top five in South Africa. The scale and accessibility of the UJ CBE highlights the University’s drive to become an international university with the vision to serve pan-African ideals,” said Prof Van Lill.

Core to the CBE will be its newly-established Johannesburg Business School (JBS), which, at its inception, is one of the largest business schools in Africa with over 6000 students. Under the leadership of its Senior Director, Prof Lyal White, the JBS will develop successful African leaders and managers with a focus on context, building on international networks and research collaborations to become the leading school of African management thinking and academic rigour. The JBS comprises of the departments of business management, finance and investment management, industrial psychology and people management, and transport and supply chain management.

The transformation of chartered accounting in South Africa is being driven from the CBE School of Accounting (SoA), headed by its Senior Director, Prof Amanda Dempsey. UJ is annually producing the biggest number, (more than a fifth) of all successful African candidate chartered accountants in the country. The School’s programmes are accredited by major national and international industry bodies, including SAICA, CIMA, ACCA, CISI, AAT and IEDC.

Insight into markets facilitated by contextual knowledge and employment of information technology is the unique offering of the CBE School of Consumer Intelligence and Applied Information Systems (SCIIS), headed by its Director, Prof Mercy Mpinganjira. The School strives to be at the forefront of analysing, predicting and setting business and consumer trends. The SCIIS already offers benchmark Honours programme in Marketing Management in South Africa, and has strong industry partnerships with national and multi-national organisations.

The CBE School of Economics (SoE) is a leader in the fields of Competition and Regulation Economics, Industrial Policy, Local Economic Development and Financial Economics. The SoE hosts the SARChI Chair in Industrial Policy, the UN IDEP program, CCRED (the research centre of competition and regulation economics) and CENLED (the centre for local economic development). The SoE, headed by its Director, Prof Hardus van Zyl, is ranked fifth in South Africa by the RePec academic rating system for Economics.

The CBE School of Public Management, Governance and Public Policy (SPMGP) collaborates with a wide range of actors in African and South African developmental government processes. The SPMGP, headed by its Director, Prof Christelle Auriacombe, has achieved national and international recognition as one of the most successful higher education and training institutions to build on best practices and to improve governance and management capacity. The School provides customised professional development programmes in the public, private and voluntary sectors. In addition, the SPMGP provides applied research, advisory, consulting, quality assurance, facilitation and policy development services.

The CBE School of Tourism and Hospitality (STH), is rated 34th globally among 100 ranked institutions for research in Tourism and Hospitality Management, in the Shanghai Ranking’s 2017 GRAS, the only South African and African university to be included. The School is headed by its Director, Dr Diane Abrahams.

From left to right: Prof Mpinganjira; Prof White; Prof Dempsey; Prof Rensburg, UJ Vice-Chancellor; Prof van Zyl; Mr Teke, UJ Council; Prof van Lill; Prof Marwala, UJ Vice-Chancellor Designate; Dr Abrahams; Prof Vyas-Doorgapersad.

Full version of the photo caption:
At the CBE launch event on 21 August 2017,from left to right:

• Prof Mercy Mpinganjira, Director of the CBE School of Consumer Intelligence and Applied Information Systems (SCIIS);
• Prof Lyal White, Senior Director of the CBE Johannesburg Business School (JBS);
• Prof Amanda Dempsey, Senior Director of the CBE School of Accounting (SoA);
• Prof Ihron Rensburg, UJ Vice-Chancellor;
• Prof Hardus van Zyl, Director of the CBE School of Economics (SoE);
• Mr Mike Teke, Acting Chair of the UJ Council;
• Prof Daneel van Lill, Acting Dean of the College of Business and Economics (CBE);
• Prof Tshilidzi Marwala, UJ Vice-Chancellor Designate;
• Dr Diane Abrahams, Director of the CBE School of Tourism and Hospitality (STH);
• Prof Shikha Vyas-Doorgapersad, representing the CBE School of Public Management, Governance and Public Policy (SPMGP), on behalf of the Director, Prof Christelle Auriacombe.