Hoosain appointed new HR head

Into office: Miriam Hoosain has been appointed as UCT's new Executive Director: Human Resources.

Miriam Hoosain has been appointed as UCT's new Executive Director: Human Resources and will take office on 1 January 2011.

Hoosain has 11 years of experience in management and human resources at UCT. She started in the university's HR Department in 1999, when she was employed as an employment equity officer. She rose steadily up the ranks over the years and served as senior HR advisor to the Faculty of Health Sciences after June 2004.

In August this year she took over as acting executive director of HR.

Hoosain is well versed in the challenges that the UCT department faces. These include issues around the accessibility of the service, HR policies and procedures, and an HR system that has to operate in a consultative academic environment.

A self-confessed workaholic, Hoosain is not backing off from these challenges.

"I have many ideas I would like to try," she says. "But I think it's about working with people - it's not a personal journey - and about motivating each and every person in the department to take on these challenges. I see this as a journey for all of us to deliver a different kind of service to UCT."

A victory for her, she says, would be for UCT to "measure its success by the success of its people".

Human resources was not Hoosain's first calling. She has worked as a scientist at the Centre for Epidemiological Research in the Medical Research Council, as a researcher for the Gender Equity Unit and a lecturer in the Psychology Department at the University of the Western Cape, and as a researcher in the New York Psychiatric Institute in the US.

Her areas of academic interest lie in women's health and psychology.

Hoosain will report to deputy vice-chancellor Professor Thandabantu Nhlapo. She will be responsible for the leadership and management of the HR function at UCT, and will contribute to UCT's mission as a member of the executive team. She will provide strategic direction for the university's HR requirements through the development and implementation of an institution-wide human capital management strategy.