Trevor Manuel served as a Cabinet Minister from 1994 to 2014 under the first four presidents.
of democratic South Africa: Mandela, Mbeki, Motlanthe and Zuma. He was first appointed to
Cabinet as Minister of Trade and Industry in May 1994, a portfolio he held for two years. In
April 1996, he became Finance Minister, steering the South African economy for 13 years as
one of the world’s longest-serving finance ministers. During his last term in office, he served
as Minister in the Presidency responsible for the National Planning Commission, a position he
held from May 2009 to May 2014. During his two decades as a Cabinet Minister he also served
as a Member of Parliament, representing the African National Congress in a system of
proportional representation.

His ministerial career highlights have tracked two decades of major social and economic
development in the South African economy. As Minister of Trade and Industry, he led the
process of reintegrating South Africa into the global economy after decades of sanctions and
disinvestment. Domestically, he introduced extensive support measures for small, medium
and micro-enterprises to boost local economic development and grow business enterprises.
During his lengthy tenure as Minister of Finance he stabilized the macroeconomy, returning
the economy to growth, significantly transformed the fiscal system in respect of taxation and
public spending, reduced South Africa’s fiscal deficit and debt, and introduced an
intergovernmental system to efficiently manage expenditure across the three spheres of
government. He spearheaded the Financial Sector Charter, a first of its kind in the country.
aimed at transforming the financial sector and providing financial services to the majority of
South Africans previously excluded from the formal economy. As Chairperson of the National
Planning Commission, he oversaw the drafting of the broadly-accepted and first National
Development Plan for the country.
During his ministerial career, Mr. Manuel assumed a number of ex officio positions in inter
national bodies, including the United Nations Commission for Trade and Development
(UNCTAD), the World Bank, the IMF, the G20, the African Development Bank and the Southern
African Development Community. He was elected by his peers as chair of a number of these
bodies. He served two terms as Chairperson of the Development Committee of the World
Bank.
He was also appointed to serve in various capacities in his own right. He was thus special.
Envoy for Financing Development on two occasions, in 2001 and 2008, by successive
Secretaries-General of the United Nations. He served on various international commissions
including the Task Force on Global Public Goods (2002/3), the Africa Commission (2005), the
Commission on Growth and Development (2006 to 2010), the Global Ocean Commission
(2012/4—which he also co-chaired) and the Commission on the New Climate Economy
(2013/4). He was requested to chair various task teams, including on IMF governance reform.
(2007/8) and the World Bank Doing Business Report (2013).
Mr. Manuel has received a number of awards and recognitions, including Africa's Finance
Minister of the Year and the Woodrow Wilson Public Service Award. He has 8 honorary
doctorates from South African tertiary institutions in a range of disciplines Commerce, Law,
Technology and a Doctor of Laws from McMaster University, Ontario, Canada. He has served
as the Chancellor of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) since May 2008 until
2013.
He is an Honorary Professor in the School of Development Policy & Practice at UCT (since
2015), where he is a Senior Political Fellow, and as Professor Extraordinaire at the University
of Johannesburg (since 2014).
Mr. Manuel serves on the following boards:
Chairperson of Old Mutual Limited;
Director of Old Mutual Life Assurance Company (SA) Pty;
Chairperson of OMLACSA;
Chairman of the African Leadership Institute in South Africa;
Chairman of the Local Organizing Committee for the Cricket World Cup 2027;
Chairman of the SA Presidency G20 Africa Experts Panel
Co-chair of the Experts Panel to the UN Secretary on Debt and Development;
Director of the Board of Mouse Free Marion;
Non-Executive Director: Deputy Chairman of Rothschild South Africa (Pty) Ltd.
Director of the Allan & Gill Gray Philanthropy Rwanda Limited
Founder and Patron of the Mitchells Plain Bursary Trust and Role Model Trust;
Mr. Manuel was born in 1956. He matriculated from Harold Cressy High School in Cape Town.
He has a National Diploma in Civil and Structural Engineering from the Peninsula Technikon
and completed the Executive Management Programme—a joint programme between
Stanford University and the National University of Singapore. He is married to Maria Ramos
and they live in South Africa.