Professor, College of Economics and Management Sciences, University of South Africa
Professor Nisha Sewdass received her Master in Business Administration from the Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, UK, in 1999 and Masters in Library and Information Science from Unisa in 2004. She also holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Competitive Intelligence, 2003 and a Postgraduate Certificate in Sense and Decision making, 2004, both from University of Pretoria. She completed her DPhil specialising in Competitive Intelligence in 2009 at the University of Pretoria where she was a lecturer in the Department of Information Science, February 2001-2013.
Her Doctoral studies focused on Competitive Intelligence (CI), a completely new study area and one which was started in the Department of Information Science, University of Pretoria in 2002. This Doctoral study in CI was only the second in the country at the time (2009). She designed both undergraduate and postgraduate courses in CI that are still been taught in the Department of Information Science at University of Pretoria. Prof Sewdass has supervised several postgraduate students’ research in this area. This was one of the first universities in the country to offer Competitive Intelligence as a completely independent module at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Furthermore, she presented various short learning courses in Competitive & Business Intelligence and Knowledge Management.
Nisha is currently a Professor in the College of Economics and Management Sciences at the University of South Africa (UNISA) (2014-Present). Her research focus is in Strategic and Competitive Intelligence, Insight and Foresight and Business Intelligence. She is currently supervising Masters and Doctoral students and has also started a new research focus area in the College in Strategic Competitive Intelligence.
She serves as the Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) Global Advisory Council Lead for Africa and founder and Chair of the SCIP South African Chapter. Previously, she served as Chair of the CI African Summits (2014, 2016). Prof Sewdass also served as a Member of the Board of Directors for SCIP International (2015-2017).
She is also a member of Open University of Dakhla, Morocco and a member of the Forum of African Associations of Economic Intelligence in Morocco.
She is the recipient of an Individual Recognition Award for CI at the 29th Annual SCIP International Conference & Exhibition held in Orlando, FL. in May 2014, the Award for Superior Achievement in the development of Competitive Intelligence Education and the advancement of the profession award was presented to her at the SCIP Africa Summit, October 2014 in South Africa. Recipient of the SCIP Distinguished Member – Academic award in 2017 presented at the 32nd Annual SCIP International Conference & Exhibition held in Atlanta, GA.
Professor Sewdass is currently involved in an international collaborative research in CI involving 3 universities in three continents to investigate Strategic & Intelligence Practices globally.