Freeman Nomvalo

About Freeman Nomvalo

Sithembiso Freeman Nomvalo is the former CEO of SAICA and South Africa’s first African, longest‑serving Accountant‑General (2004 - 2013). He previously led SITA, helped shape the Audit Profession Act of 2005, served on high‑stakes governance inquiries, and advised 18 Caribbean governments on public‑finance controls with the Commonwealth. He established a leadership development program for National Treasury. He was invited as a faculty at Havard Kennedy School of Government in 2013. In 2023 he facilitated a leadership conversation with the cabinet of the State of Oromia in Ethiopia. In 2024 he was appointed Administrator of NSFAS to stabilise the scheme. He speaks on ethical leadership, professionalising public finance, and crisis governance.

Key message

Rebuilding trust through capable institutions — professionalising finance, enforcing ethics, and leading with service. Increasing chances of driving change successfully - reducing changes of being taken out, pushed aside, marginalised etc Building a save organisational environment and inculcating a performance-oriented mindset

Speaking topics and expertise

• Turnaround leadership in public finance — lessons from SA’s Accountant‑General office
• Rebuilding the audit profession’s credibility — regulation
• discipline
• renewal
• Capable state
• clean audits — what boards
• CFOs and city managers must do
• Managing Funding higher education at scale — the NSFAS case
• fixes and future
• Crisis governance in sport and SOEs — from inquiry to implementation
• Anti‑corruption and ethics — practical levers that actually change behaviour
• Leadership - Championing Change
• and Mindset change for superior performance