Dr. Buthelezi is a seasoned public health medical practitioner with more than 15 years’ experience in health governance, policy, and programme management. After serving as a clinician and later Medical Superintendent in various hospitals in KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State province, he served for 10 years as KwaZulu-Natal’s provincial head of Strategic Health Programmes which encompassed HIV, TB, maternal child and women’s health, nutrition, and communicable diseases programmes .

Before joining SANAC, Dr. Buthelezi had been South Africa’s Country Director for ICAP at Columbia University, which is a division of the New York-based Mailman School of Public Health since 2014. Prior to this, Dr. Buthelezi worked as the Senior Technical Lead for the DFID-funded SARRAH programme which was implemented by Mott-McDonald supporting the health reforms in South Africa.

Amongst others, Dr. Buthelezi has served in the following portfolios:
Clinician – hospitals in KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State province
Director – Programs for multi-country AIDS programme – ICAP at Columbia University
Senior Technical Lead – DFID funded SARRAH programme which supported SA’s health reforms
Health Systems Management and Governance Specialist – Institute for Youth Development South Africa (IYDSA) and the
Foundation for Professional Development (FPD)
During his tenure as SANAC CEO, Dr Buthelezi served as the Chairperson of the Global Fund ( CCM) Country Coordination Mechanism.

Dr. Anban Pillay is the Deputy Director General at the National Department of Health in South Africa. His currently responsibilities relate to Health Regulation and Compliance He has served in various roles at the National Department of Health over the past 20 years. These include development of pharmaceutical policies on medicine registration, treatment guidelines, medicine formularies, procurement, and service delivery strategies. He has also been instrumental in the developmental of the Universal Health Coverage (National Health Insurance) policy and its legislative development in South Africa.



He currently serves on the Pandemic Fund Board and has previously served on a number of Global Bodies including the World Health Organization (Co-Chair Essential Medicines Committee, Advisory Committee on Medicine Pricing), Medicines Patent Pool (Board member), Global Fund (Market Dynamics Advisory group), UNICEF (Procurement advisory group) and Health Action International (Advisory Committee). Most recently he co-chaired the ACT Accelerator which was a WHO mechanism to foster collaboration and accelerate development, production, and equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines.

Dr. Anban Pillay holds a Bachelor of Pharmacy (University of Kwazulu Natal, South Africa), master’s in clinical pharmacology (Nelson Mandela School of Medicine, South Africa) and PhD (University of Newcastle, Australia). He is extensively published in peer reviewed journals and book chapters.