Jayaseelan Naidoo
Board Chairman
Jay Naidoo is the current Chairman of the Board of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN). He is the Chairman of the J&J Development Trust, the social development arm of the J&J Group, which is a diversified investment and management group headquartered in Johannesburg South Africa. He is also the Chairman of the Development Bank of Southern Africa, a key financial institution driving the expansion of social and economic infrastructure in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.
Mr Naidoo’s studies and career were marked by the political situation in South Africa in the seventies and eighties. Enrolled in the University of Durban Westville in 1975 to pursue a medical career, government repression forced him to leave before completing his degree. He was active in the South African Students Organization led by Steve Biko and as a community organizer and union leader (Sweet, Food and Allied Workers Union).
In 1985 he became General Secretary of the Congress of African Trade Unions (COSATU) and was re-elected for three terms. His work with COSATU and his commitment to bringing about social and political freedom in alliance with the now governing African National Congress (ANC) Party, led to his appointment as coordinator of the Reconstruction and Development Programmed (RDP) in the 1993-4 election campaign. Subsequently, he held this portfolio as Minister of the RDP in the Office of President Mandela.
In 1996 he became Minister of Communications, overseeing the largest privatization in South African (Telkom SA). Together with other telecommunications ministers throughout Africa he helped set the African Connection, a policy framework adopted by over 44 countries for creating regional markets and projects. At the end of his term in South Africa’s first democratic parliament, Mr Naidoo left politics for the private sector to promote the expansion of an information backbone for the continent’s shared vision of an African Renaissance.
Other positions he holds are on the Board of Directors of Telecom an advisory body to the Secretary General of the International Telecommunications Union, a member of the Health Advisory Committee of the Clinton Global Initiative and the Deputy Chairman of the Lovelife Trust, a non governmental organization committed to fighting the HIV/Aids pandemic in South Africa.
He is the recipient of many awards including the Chevaliers de la Legion d’Honneur from the French Government. Jay is married to journalist and writer Ms Lucie Page and he considers his three beautiful children his greatest achievement.
