Professor Heather McLeod

Heather is an actuary by training and her early career was in investments and investment consulting. Since the early 1990s she has worked in healthcare financing, initially as a consultant working with employers and unions on the financing of healthcare for workers.

She joined the University of Cape Town in 1998 to develop courses in private sector healthcare financing. Heather now has appointments as a visiting professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences of the University of Cape Town and Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at the University of Stellenbosch. She co-ordinates the training of actuaries in healthcare for Stellenbosch University.

Heather served on the Council for Medical Schemes for six years until 2005 and was a member of the Executive Committee. She assisted the Department of Health task team implementing the Medical Schemes Act and establishing the new regulatory authority. She currently serves on the Advisory Board for the National Health Reference Price List.

Since 2003 she has been assisting with technical work on the implementation of Social Health Insurance and the Risk Equalisation Fund. She chaired the Formula Consultative Task Team in 2003 and chaired the Risk Equalisation Technical Advisory Panel (RETAP) from 2004 to August 2007.

Heather has served on the Appeal Board of the Financial Services Board since 2001. In 2006 she joined the team working on retirement reform for the Department of Social Development and continues to work for the Inter-Departmental Task Team through the National Treasury. She has also consulted internationally on aspects of healthcare financing and social health reform.

In the rural village of Barrydale where she now lives she assists a community health forum and has a particular interest in traditional and complementary medicine. She is a registered practitioner with the Allied Health Professions Council and is chair of the Traditional and Complementary Medicine team for the International Actuarial Association.