UJ Top Under 35 CA award finalists shaping our future

Stephanie Venter and Zafeer Nagdee have been selected for the Top 35 - under 35 award, launched by Accountancy SA magazine. The awards recognise future leaders in South Africa, not only for their exceptional career aspirations but also for their ambitions to better the lives of surrounding communities.

Stephanie Venter

Stephanie Venter, a Senior Lecturer in Accountancy and Departmental Community Engagement Coordinator at UJ has founded and facilitated a host of noteworthy initiatives, one being the launch of the #UJGr8Deb8. The #UJGr8Deb8 is a second-year project for UJ's BCom accounting students and equips students to be leaders in the workplace. Groups are upskilled to the point of open, unregulated and professional debate on relevant ethical dilemmas.

As a Vodacom Change the World Volunteer at the Kliptown Youth Programme (KYP), Venter started the KYP Career Centre with the vision to empower students to be architects of their own exit strategy out of poverty. Ms Venter established the KYP Bursary Fund that currently supports 11 full-time students. KYP has secured a R4,3 million partnership with the Service SETA for professional training.

Zafeer Nagdee

Zafeer Nagdee, a Senior Lecturer in Accountancy, was instrumental in the development of South Africa's first accredited thought leadership programme for prospective Chartered Accountants in South Africa. He was acknowledged for this feat with the University's Vice-Chancellor's Distinguished Award for the Most Promising Young Teacher in 2014.

Nagdee, who introduced an extremely successful 15-minute "in-the- news" slot at the beginning of his lectures, believes modern-day lecturers need the ability to "unlearn and relearn" their ways of teaching. They have to and to find new ways of connecting with students, to provide them with material that is current, relevant and inspiring. His use of social media, tablet devices and video clips assists him with this, as does his frequent interaction with accounting professionals.

In 2014, his work featured at the International Congress on Economy, Finance and Business in Japan. Beyond academia, he currently serves as a business assessor on the Entrepreneurship Development Programme of one of South Africa's largest welfare organisations. He is also the founder and CEO of Zinvesco Holdings (Pty) Ltd - an investment company strategically placed within the country's realty sector.