Research Associate at SOAS, to enable me to continue my research program on migration governance reform based at the New South Institute.

Currently teaching at UCT and researching migration governance in Africa.

Responsible for monitoring and evaluating the implementation of domestic economic policy, and for a range of international engagements including representing the Presidency in the G20 officials processes and as Co-Chair of the Development Working Group of the G20, 2010-2012

Deputy head of the policy unit that advises the President and the Deputy President of South Africa, and provides strategic support to senior govenrment officials and the Cabinet, and monitoring and evaluation of goverment performance.

Management of industrial development policies and programmes, including innovation programmes.

Chief Director Industry and Technology Strategy, Chief Director Business Regulation and Consumer Services, and Deputy Chief Economist, director of the Industrial Development Corporation and Chair of the Board of Investment South Africa

Alan Hirsch was born in Cape Town and educated in South Africa and the US, with degrees in Economics, Economic History and History from UCT, Wits and Columbia University. He also trained at Georgetown University, and was a visiting scholar at the Harvard Business School.He worked as an economics lecturer and economic research director at UCT. Hirsch joined the DTI as Chief Director, Industry and Technology Strategy in 1995. In 1999, after spending a year at Harvard, he returned to the post of Chief Director, Business Regulation and Consumer Services in the DTI. In 2000 he was appointed Deputy Chief Economist of the DTI and Strategic Advisor on New Economy Policy and was later asked to manage the information and communication technology industrial cluster at the DTI. In October 2002 he joined the Presidency as Chief Economist, Policy Co-ordination and Advisory Services. He was later Deputy Director General of the Presidency and deputy head of the policy unit. He is now Professor and director of the Graduate School of Development Policy and Practice at UCT which trains leaders in Africa's public sector.Hirsch developed, restructured and managed a wide range of projects and programmes at the dti, initiating or modifying many of the supply-side measures and investment incentives operating since the mid-1990s. He also helped to establish several new institutions such as TIPS, Investment South Africa, and the Micro-Finance Regulatory Council (now the National Credit Regulator). At the Presidency he helped drive initiatives such as Jipsa, AsgiSA and the Second Economy Project.He published Season of Hope: Economic Reform under Mandela and Mbeki in 2005, and his most recent (co-edited) book is the Oxford Companion to the Economics of South Africa.