Meet the Team

Thomas Swana is a South African whose family was driven into exile in his childhood. He was raised and educated in the UK. After emigrating to America, he joined McDonalds Corporation USA where he was named McDonald Construction Manager of the Year in 1988 and winner of the company’s President’s Award 1989. Swana later held top positions with Chevron and Caltex in South Africa and Singapore. With the dissolving of the apartheid era he returned home to continue a career in the transformation of the new South Africa.

In 2004, he established UkuZwana Holdings and UkuZwana Project Management Solutions in Cape Town to conduct entrepreneurial ventures and consulting services to the project management sector. In 2011, he was appointed to the position of CEO Philippi Economic Development Initiative (PEDI) and now works closely with the City of Cape Town Economic Development Department, the PEDI Board, Sub Council 13 and the residential and business community of Philippi where he can draw on his local and international career experience with the aim to renew the economy of Philippi.

tlswana@pedi.org.za

Alderman Anthea Serritslev is chairperson of the board of PEDI. She is also Chief Whip in the City of Cape Town and has been a key driver of the promotion of Philippi as an economic hub. Ald Serritslev, who has been a City of Cape Town councillor since 1998, has been a champion of the growth of PEDI as a development organisation committed to transforming the precinct and uplifting surrounding communities by economically improving the Philippi Industrial area. Ald Serritslev believes that PEDI’s work can assist the City to address business attraction and retention, environmental improvement, crime, area cleaning, informal trade management and taxi management and social programmes. Improvement in these areas will stimulate and increase investment confidence and local economic growth in the area, leading to the opening of new factories and businesses, providing the local communities with increased job opportunities.

Prior to being elected Chief Whip, Ald Serritslev served on the Economic Development portfolio committee of the City.  In that capacity she served as a director on the board of the highly successful Cape Town Partnership, which was also set up by the City of Cape Town as a Section 21 company, and which was mandated to rescue the CBD from urban decline – a task that has been very successfully achieved. She has also served as a trustee of the City’s Cape Town Heritage Trust.