Econex - Staff

Home

Staff

Econex - Staff

We have highly trained staff, with specific areas of expertise. Read more about an individual staff member below:

Dr. Nicola Theron

Nicola Theron is the managing director of Econex and heads the Competition Practice. She is also an Extraordinary Senior Lecturer at the University of Stellenbosch where she teaches courses in competition economics. She holds a Masters degree in Economics cum laude from the University of Pretoria, and a PhD (Economics) from the University of Stellenbosch.

Dr. Theron has been involved right from the start with the new competition dispensation in South Africa. She was the expert economist for the first large merger handled by the competition authorities at the end of 1999 (Santam and Guardian National Insurance). Since then, she has provided expert witness and numerous economic reports for various large clients in proceedings before the Competition Commission and the Competition Tribunal. She also previously served as a part-time member of the Competition Tribunal.

Prof. Rachel Jafta

Rachel Jafta is co-founder and director of Econex. She is a Professor in Economics at the University of Stellenbosch. Her research interests are in industrial economics, economics of innovation, international trade and Black Economic Empowerment. She has also published in all these fields. She holds a B. Econ (Hons) from the University of the Western Cape, an M. Econ and a PhD (Economics) from the University of Stellenbosch.

Cobus Venter

Director of Econex, Cobus Venter joined the company during 2008. While completing his Master’s in Economics at Stellenbosch University he became active in the eco tourism field and set up a consultancy setting up successful fishing venues. This non-traditional career path led to various entrepreneurial business ventures. Cobus has also acted as a logistics consultant for various large companies.

After establishing and selling a small manufacturing concern he joined the family hotel group as Director in 1999. He later became Managing Director of d’Ouwe Werf hotel in Stellenbosch, a position he held until 2007 when the business was sold. Cobus joined the Bureau for Economic Research (BER) in Stellenbosch as a part-time consultant economist at the end of 2007. At Econex, Cobus takes responsibility for new business development as well as being responsible for macro economic variables and research. He also heads the Econex Tourism Economics unit.

Willem H. Boshoff

Willem H. Boshoff is a director of Econex and a business economist at Stellenbosch University where he teaches graduate econometrics, macroeconomics and managerial economics in the Department of Economics.

Willem holds an MSc in Management Research with distinction from the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford and an MComm in Economics from Stellenbosch University. Willem specializes in business and competition economics (including quantitative analysis). He has worked with Econex on projects in the telecommunications, IT, media, petrochemical, food and tobacco industries.

Prof. Colin McCarthy

Colin McCarthy is an emeritus professor of Economics at the University of Stellenbosch where he is still on contract to teach and provide guidance to graduate students in international trade and industrial policy. He holds the position of Senior Associate with Econex. Colin specialises in international trade, regional integration in particular, and industrial development policy. He has extensive experience of consultancy and advisory work in the public sector, amongst others as member of the International Trade Administration Commission, and as a consultant to the government, private sector, the Committee of Central Bank Governors of the Southern African Development Community, the Secretariat of the Southern African Customs Union and international agencies such as the World Bank, the United Nations Industrial Organisation, and the Food and Agricultrual Organisation of the United Nations.

Johann van Eeden

Johann van Eeden is an economist with Econex, where he specialises in competition economics and international trade analyses. He holds a Masters degree in Economics cum laude, completed at Stellenbosch University and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and a Masters degree in Law (Economic Analysis of Law) from the University of Vienna. Johann was both a European Commission and South Africa House Scholar during his respective postgraduate studies abroad. His undergraduate background is in finance and financial economics.

Mariné Erasmus

Mariné Erasmus is a consulting economist specifically focused on health economics. She has recently worked on a large study concerning the proposed National Health Insurance policy in South Africa, as well as a study on the Zambian private health insurance sector. Mariné studied B.Comm (law) and then completed both her Honours and Masters degrees in Economics cum laude. She also spent a semester studying in the U.S.A. as an exchange student. While studying Economics, Mariné concentrated on development and institutional economics in the South African context specifically.

In addition to her work in the health sector, Mariné has worked on several large projects since joining Econex. These include an analysis of a proposed export tax on scrap metal, quantifying the loss to the Western Cape economy of the delay in investment by a large developer due to the current energy problems, and determining the value of tourism to the Stellenbosch district. She has also worked on several projects in the energy sector such as forecasting the demand for petroleum products in South Africa up to 2030.

Laurie Binge

Laurie Binge is an economist with Econex. He holds a Bcomm (Honours) degree in Financial Economics cum laude from Stellenbosch University and an Mcomm (Economics) cum laude completed at Stellenbosch University and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Laurie held departmental bursaries for all his years of study at Stellenbosch University and at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Laurie’s undergraduate and graduate studies centered predominantly around finance and financial economics and his Master’s thesis topic was on whether capital controls are relevant for emerging market economies.

At Econex, Laurie has worked on projects in health and tourism economics in addition to competition analyses. He is also skilled in econometric modelling and other quantitive techniques in economics and finance.

Ernst Fitschen

Ernst Fitschen is an economist with Econex. Ernst started his academic career in accounting and completed the much sought after Bcomm (Honours) in Accounting at Stellenbosch University. His interest in economics led him to subsequently complete both a Bcomm (Honours) in Economics and a Mcomm (Economics) also from Stellenbosch University. Ernst was also recently awarded a scholarship to further his studies at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Ernst's unique combination of an accounting and an economics background makes him especially adept for projects where these two disciplines intersect, for example the recent Econex assessment of royalty calculations for South African radio broadcasters.