Team
Martin Cameron, Ph.D: Founder and Managing Director
Martin is a quantitative economist specialising in Quantitative Executive Decision Support modelling, Economic Impact Analysis and Engineering Management Decision Support. He has extensive experience in international trade and energy economics.
Martin specialises in international trade as well as energy modelling. He has authored various papers on both the fields of international trade as well as power (electrical) network reliability modelling. Martin is also behind the developed the online Export Market Finder platform both in terms of research and technical implementation.
He has been conducting economic impact assessments and other related South African macro-economic, sectoral, provincial and industrial impact studies and policy related analysis since 1994.
Martin started his non-academic career at the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) in the middle 1990s, after post-graduate studies and lecturing at the North-West University. At the IDC, he was a member of the team that supported the analytics underpinning the SA-EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA).
In his capacity as quantitative economist he has been part of the developments of most of the major industrial and policy developments in South Africa, including more recently the King Shaka/Dube Trade Port business case development, Bombella Gautrain bid, various studies for Eskom on potential alternative generation build options, electricity price increase implications for the Department of Public Enterprise and other related energy economic impact studies in the liquid fuels and energy transportation fields (Department of Energy and Transnet, Transnet Pipelines and Sasol).
In 2015 he was appointed by the Director General of the South African Department of Trade and Industry (the dti) as member of the economic research advisory network (ERAN) comprising of representatives from the national and provincial economic development government departments, government entities, universities and research institutions.
Martin holds a PhD in International Trade from the North-West University, South Africa, as well as a master’s degree (cum laude) in computable general equilibrium (CGE) modelling and development economics from the same university.
Wilma Viviers, Prof Ph.D: Board Member (North-West University)
Wilma is a professor of International Trade, director of the TRADE research focus area and NRF-rated researcher at the North-West University (Potchefstroom campus). She has an impressive array of publications, and is a leading authority in the fields of intentional trade.
Wilma’s research interest in, and active contribution towards the realisation of, strategies to improve South Africa’s trade performance and competitiveness, are acknowledged both locally and internationally. Notably, the TRADE-DSM (Decision Support Model) for the identification of South African export opportunities – which she spearheaded in South Africa – is being lauded in both government and business circles as a refreshingly efficient approach to export market selection.
She has also received numerous awards in recognition of her ground-breaking research over the years. Wilma sits on several national and international committees, and is frequently asked to speak to stakeholder groups about her research initiatives.
In 2014, she was honoured with the award of a WTO Chair from the World Trade Organization.
Johann Coetzee (BL): Board Member (North-West University)
Johann is an attorney (Baccalaureus Legum) at the NWU’s institutional office for technology transfer and innovation. Johann also holds a Master of Business Administration – MBA, Business Administration and Management, GeneralMaster of Business Administration – MBA, Business Administration and Management, General
At the North-West University Johann manages all aspects of IPR-Act including disclosures and providing company secretarial support for NWU associates and subsidiaries. He also oversees, monitors and provide IP contracting processes and obligations support including managing statutory, policy and contractual compliance and reporting. Johann is also responsible for developing policies, rules, procedures and guidelines in line with IP and commercial legislation. He regularly liaises with line management on training staff to comply with legislation and policies.
Wim Naudé, Prof Ph.D: Strategic Advisor
Wim is an economist with >30 years of experience in applied economic analysis, policy advocacy and working on the grand and global challenges. According to Stanford University’s Ranking of Scientists (version 5) Wim is among the top 2% of scientists in the world. He also has > 10,000 citations to his work, according to Google Scholar.
Wim, a strategic advisor to TRADE Research Advisory, is affiliated with Cork University Business School in Ireland, and the Environmental Research Institute at University College Cork, and Visiting Professor in the Technology, Innovation, Marketing and Entrepreneurship research area at RWTH Aachen University in Germany and he is also Research Fellow at the IZA Institute of Labor Economics in Bonn (the leading economics research institute in Germany) and Research Affiliate at the ISDC – International Security and Development Centre in Berlin.
For the 2018-2019 academic year, Wim was Visiting Professor at Saïd Business School at University of Oxford. Wim is one of the world’s leading scholars in entrepreneurship, technological innovation and economic transformation. He has been a policy advisor and contributor to virtual all global development organizations including the WTO, OECD, United Nations organizations, EU, World Bank, IFC, and many more. His is a regular keynote speaker and corporate lecturer.
In the area of trade, he has published widely on the impacts of geography, technological innovation and entrepreneurship on exports and FDI and has most recently been a contributor to the 2018 World Trade Organization’s (WTO) World Trade Report, on digital technologies and trade. His books are available on Amazon and Oxford Scholarship online.
His current work is on artificial intelligence, digitization, and the future of (smart) manufacturing, and how trade impact on these. He regularly writes for The Conversation and The Broker in order to popularize and share his work with a larger audience.
Past appointments include Maastricht University in the Netherlands; Affiliate Professor at CENTRUM Graduate School of Business in Peru; the United Nations University (UNU-WIDER) in Finland; at Oxford University, UK; and at North-West University in South Africa, where he was the founding Director of its WorkWell Research and steered as founding chairman the creation of the spin-off company Afriforte (Pty). Between 2005 and 2007 Wim served on the Council of Statistics South Africa, appointed by the then Minister of Finance, Mr. Trevor Manuel. He holds a Ph.D in Economics from the North-West University and a M.Sc in Quantitative Development Economics from the University of Warwick.