Ms Hayley Rodkin holds a Master of Philosophy in Environmental Science from the Unversity of Cape Town and a Master of Arts from the University of the Western Cape (creative writing). She has over two decades of professional and senior management experience in national and provincial government. Her areas of expertise, amongst others, include strategic and business planning, entity oversight, education management, stakeholder engagement, community participation and development, policy and legislation, and socio-economic research for social justice. She has an excellent track record of developing and writing strategic plans, annual performance plans and taking these through to positive auditing processes. She has advance writing, editing and stakeholder engagement skills. 

She has worked on a variety of projects with EcoAfrica including a community-based tourism initiative to develop a tourism route from historically disadvantaged areas such as Langa through to Northern Cape areas. She was involved in developing Environmental Assessment Guidelines (for Tourism Development) commissioned by the Secretariat for East African Coastal Areas Management (SEACAM). Her Master of Philosophy in Environmental Science focused on the Community Participation in Tourism and Mariculture Development as Alternate Livelihood Options in Namaqualand, in relation to Alexkor Ltd Diamond Mine. She was the Social and Community Facilitation scientist in the Global Change Project in Paulshoek, a multi-disciplinary study on Rangelands, while working as a Research Fellow at the Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies at the University of Western Cape. The project focused on socio-economic conditions and the interface between communities and natural resources in the communal area. Her work covered land reform policies, redistribution, tenure and rural development.

Hayley has lead community-based water education projects for national governments as well as strategic management of economic development initiatives. These interventions would typically involve collaboration with all tiers of government but particularly local authorities, communities and intended beneficiaries, as well as other research and non-governmental institutions. She has gained solid experience in capacity-building and training through tertiary institutions and specific initiatives such as the Distance Learning Information Sharing Tool (DLIST) over many years.

She is currently involved in the development of an Integrated Management Plan for the Cultural Oasis in the AlUla County for the Royal Commission of AlUla in Saudi Arabia. She is focusing on education and research, local farmers involvement, agriculture, environment, water, biodiversity as well as governance.

Hayley has several years of policy-making and governance experience having worked in several senior management positions, inter-alia, as Chief-Director and Principal of Elsenburg Agricultural College, Chief-Director for Strategy Management and Entity Oversight for the Department of Trade and Industry, and Chief-Director for Office of Director-General: Economic Development Department.

In addition to her university degrees, she has completed several courses including Environmental Economics, Gender-Mainstreaming, Strategic and Business Planning for Executives, Script Writing, Financial and Human Resource Management, Ethics, Protocol Training for Governmente