His keen interest in solving problems and developing long-term solutions recently earned him high honour. Tyrin Naidoo (36), the City’s Acting Chief Operations Officer who is also serving in a substantive role as Group Head of the strategic portfolio management office, was named one of Africa’s top 100 Brightest Young Minds (BYM) for 2022. BYM was founded in 2000 with a mission to connect young leaders and facilitate the development of skills and the design of solutions that create sustainable impact across Africa, focusing on pressing problems like social issues, unemployment, poverty and the water and energy crises.
Tyrin considers himself fortunate to have been chosen. He received the news in November 2022 while in Barcelona for the Smart City conference. “I was surprised. The recognition is great, and the brilliant aspect about being part of this group is that you get to network with everyone else who was nominated. It’s a massive network of problem solvers.”
What made Tyrin’s submission stand out was his contribution to the City’s overall Covid-19 response, infrastructure value chain improvement initiatives and urban renewal programmes (for Orange Farm, Kliptown and Ivory Park).
Tyrin served as the primary strategic interface between the City and Gauteng Provincial Government. It was through this role that he was able to enable an integrated inter-governmental response to Covid-19 from the provincial to local government level, which assisted in not only saving lives through a comprehensive health response but saving livelihoods through strengthened social support and economic recovery interventions.
He is also playing a critical role in ensuring the realisation of the City’s socio-economic outcomes through the strengthened planning and delivery of its infrastructure portfolio.
In his substantive role as Group Head, he focuses mainly on improvements across the infrastructure value chain.
One of his goals is to ensure that strengthened infrastructure planning and delivery will serve as a catalyst for meeting current and future demand for services, socio-economic growth, and reform and addressing inequality within the City of Johannesburg.
In 2020/2021 – 2021/2022, Tyrin was also responsible for coordinating and delivering multi-million-rand urban renewal and upgrade programmes for Orange Farm, Kliptown and Ivory Park to address the most pressing needs of communities while developing a longer-term improvement plan.
He has a master’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of KwaZulu-Natal and an honours degree in Technology Management from the University of Pretoria.
Tyrin started his career at Sasol before moving to PWC. In 2018, he joined the City eager to apply his technical expertise and knowledge to solve problems in the public sector.
“I wanted to work in the public sector because of the difference one can make.”
He has always been solution-driven and emphasises that sometimes “we can’t solve it alone”. His biggest motivation comes from his mother and grandmother, who played a vital role in where he is today.
Growing up in Pietermaritzburg in a previously disadvantaged community with limited opportunities, his underlying driver has always been to strive for a better life for his family and himself.
He aims to complete an MBA and continue to work diligently towards improving the lives of residents in the City and using infrastructure better.
“My ultimate goal is to contribute towards creating a city that improves the quality of life of residents and delivers on its basic mandate, which is to service its citizens.”
Written by Brümilda Swartbooi
27/01/2023