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Claire Thwaits is the Managing Director of the Network for Business Sustainability South Africa. The company is a collaborative partnership between GIBS, the UCT GSB and the NBS hosted at Ivey Business School in Canada. The organisation is based at GIBS, as the administrative and geographic home of the NBS in SA. This is the first academic/cross-sectoral business collaborative of its kind (i.e., focusing on sustainability issues) in South Africa.

In addition to her role with the NBS, Claire manages the Transnet Programme in Sustainable Development - at the Gordon Institute of Business Science, University of Pretoria - an academic programme aimed at mainstreaming sustainability into the curriculum taught at GIBS and raising the profile of sustainability within the business community. Claire also started the business school's internal sustainability projects, and now oversees GIBS' environmental and corporate social responsibility programmes.

Claire is a Chartered Marketer (SA) and holds a Post-Graduate Diploma in Marketing Management from the IMM Graduate School of Marketing (Cum Laude), as well as a B.Soc.Sci PPE from the University of Cape Town, and a B.A.Hons from the University of the Witwatersrand. She was until recently the Marketing Association of South Africa's representative on the Advertising Industry Tribunal (AIT), a committee of industry professionals and representatives convened by the Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (ASA) to adjudicate competitor complaints.

In a former life, Claire worked in various advertising and corporate communications roles, designing strategies and delivering international marketing campaigns for some of South Africa's top brands and companies.