NEWS

MES appoints new CEO

Hillbrow – Community organisation Mould Empower Serve (MES) that feeds the poor and displaced people, has appointed a new CEO.

  The board of directors appointed Leona Pienaar as the new CEO with effect from 15 January. 

  MES is a Christian social development organisation that has been changing the heart and soul of the city since 1986, and has been working towards providing sustainable solutions to poverty in the Joburg inner-city, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Kempton Park.

  Pienaar’s appointment followed the resignation of former CEO Reverend Alan Childs, and interim appointment of Reverend Johan Krige, whose term ended in December last year.

  According to MES Pienaar has worked for the organisation for more than 25 years. MES board chairman Reverend Hannes Windell said Piennar has contributed positively to its vision in various capacities.

“Ms Pienaar has had a heart for MES since she joined MES as a service year volunteer in 1994. Her zeal to reach out to street children is admirable, and led her to be the co-founder of the Johannesburg Alliance for Street Children only a few months later,” Windell added.

  Pienaar holds a bachelor’s degree in social work from the University of Stellenbosch and for the past 13 years, she has led the organisation’s national fundraising and marketing team, raising on average more than R33 million each year to fund the various MES programmes across South Africa.

  Some of the notable initiatives she has founded in this role include the popular yearly Hillbrow Unplugged charity concert which takes place on 9 February.

  Pienaar said:  “I look forward to adding value to the delivery of the vision of MES, a vision which I adopted very personally since the beginning of my career.”

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