Brand comes on board as procurement policy head
A disciplined, God-fearing family man, Francois Brand has faith in God and His ever-willingness to provide favour, wisdom and guidance, which have been the key contributors on the road to his current position.
Monique Adams
Born in Windhoek in 1984, Francois Brand attended Suiderhof Primary School and completed his matric at Windhoek High School. He then moved to England to gain life and work experience, where he stayed for two years before moving to South Africa for five years, starting a business with friends and studying through the University of South Africa.
When he finished his degree in business management, he came back to Namibia and started working for the Namibia University of Science and Technology.
After he gained work experience in England, he started working in sales and marketing before starting a small business that intended to develop a mobile application, which, at that time, would have provided free text and voice communication as well as commerce.
Broad career history
“I have quite a broad career history filled with entrepreneurship, capacity development and project and strategic management in the private and public sector. After returning to Namibia, I worked at the Centre for Enterprise Development as a project administrator where I volunteered to conduct training. “This was a tremendous opportunity and I found myself to be a natural trainer and enjoyed it,” Brand said.
Thereafter, he joined the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit as the manager of the Financial Literacy Initiative (FLI). Later, he joined the ministry of finance as the deputy director for financial education and consumer protection, where he gained many new responsibilities in addition to remaining the FLI manager.
He was then appointed as the director for professionalisation and capacity strengthening at the procurement policy unit (PPU) in 2018.
Moving on up
On how he prepared himself for this new position as the head of the PPU, Brand said he finished his Master’s in business administration degree, choosing a dissertation topic in public procurement. He also engaged training from the Worldbank and read a lot in the field of public procurement while being part of benchmarking visits.
“I explore best practices in other countries. However, this job requires a tremendously committed and strong team. I value teamwork and without the key members of our team in the unit who contribute significantly, I would not be able to represent the current position.” he said.
In his new role, his duties will be to advise the finance minister on public procurement and the disposal of assets, which includes monitoring compliance with this Act, guidelines issued under the Public Procurement Act as well as reviewing procurement systems and the proposal of mechanisms for improving the implementation system on socio-economic policy objectives of the government.
Freedom
What makes him truly happy in life is freedom, which he said he attains through faith and obedience.
Brand added that, as far as he can recall, he has always been passionate about Namibia and it excited him even as a young child. Namibian culture, people, its beauty and the freedom we gain from it makes him happy, he said.
“I would like to envision myself as part of the solution in creating social and economic freedom for fellow Namibians.” he said.
“I believe in being proactive and being willing to push, even if it becomes a bit uncomfortable. I further believe in following up until you reached your desired goals,” he said.
“I love adventure and have a wide area of interest. For hobbies, I enjoy metal detecting, entrepreneurship, any family outing, reading and, currently, worm farming,” Brand added.
Born in Windhoek in 1984, Francois Brand attended Suiderhof Primary School and completed his matric at Windhoek High School. He then moved to England to gain life and work experience, where he stayed for two years before moving to South Africa for five years, starting a business with friends and studying through the University of South Africa.
When he finished his degree in business management, he came back to Namibia and started working for the Namibia University of Science and Technology.
After he gained work experience in England, he started working in sales and marketing before starting a small business that intended to develop a mobile application, which, at that time, would have provided free text and voice communication as well as commerce.
Broad career history
“I have quite a broad career history filled with entrepreneurship, capacity development and project and strategic management in the private and public sector. After returning to Namibia, I worked at the Centre for Enterprise Development as a project administrator where I volunteered to conduct training. “This was a tremendous opportunity and I found myself to be a natural trainer and enjoyed it,” Brand said.
Thereafter, he joined the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit as the manager of the Financial Literacy Initiative (FLI). Later, he joined the ministry of finance as the deputy director for financial education and consumer protection, where he gained many new responsibilities in addition to remaining the FLI manager.
He was then appointed as the director for professionalisation and capacity strengthening at the procurement policy unit (PPU) in 2018.
Moving on up
On how he prepared himself for this new position as the head of the PPU, Brand said he finished his Master’s in business administration degree, choosing a dissertation topic in public procurement. He also engaged training from the Worldbank and read a lot in the field of public procurement while being part of benchmarking visits.
“I explore best practices in other countries. However, this job requires a tremendously committed and strong team. I value teamwork and without the key members of our team in the unit who contribute significantly, I would not be able to represent the current position.” he said.
In his new role, his duties will be to advise the finance minister on public procurement and the disposal of assets, which includes monitoring compliance with this Act, guidelines issued under the Public Procurement Act as well as reviewing procurement systems and the proposal of mechanisms for improving the implementation system on socio-economic policy objectives of the government.
Freedom
What makes him truly happy in life is freedom, which he said he attains through faith and obedience.
Brand added that, as far as he can recall, he has always been passionate about Namibia and it excited him even as a young child. Namibian culture, people, its beauty and the freedom we gain from it makes him happy, he said.
“I would like to envision myself as part of the solution in creating social and economic freedom for fellow Namibians.” he said.
“I believe in being proactive and being willing to push, even if it becomes a bit uncomfortable. I further believe in following up until you reached your desired goals,” he said.
“I love adventure and have a wide area of interest. For hobbies, I enjoy metal detecting, entrepreneurship, any family outing, reading and, currently, worm farming,” Brand added.
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