Our
people
are our
greatest
asset.
Our
people
are our
greatest
asset.
With an average of 25 years’ experience amongst senior personnel, our people are our greatest asset. We employ approximately 30 permanent staff in our head office. Meet our management team below.
Washeelah Kapery
Managing Director
Washeelah founded Citizen Surveys in 1996. Prior to that she worked for the Argus Newspaper Group, the HSRC and TNS Research Surveys (between 1984 to 1996). Washeelah has overseen all the studies that Citizen Surveys has conducted in the past 20 years, consisting of over a hundred clients and more than a million interviews. These interviews, focus groups and audits have been done for clients ranging from government departments and international institutions to non-profit organisations and multi-national corporations. Washeelah has maintained firm leadership of Citizen Surveys for the past 20 years, mentored staff, and protected the values and integrity of the company.
Reza Omar
Strategic Research Director
Reza joined Citizen Surveys in 1998 after graduating from the University of Cape Town with majors in Economics and Philosophy. Over the past 20 years, Reza has focused on socio-political research for government, academic institutions and international development agencies, as well as brand and market research for major corporate clients. He has managed large scale, national tracking surveys; providing strategic insight into the various dimensions of the lives of South Africans; as citizens, consumers, voters, business owners and employees. Reza also engineered and lead a 10-year strategic research study of the mobile telecoms sector in South Africa, acquiring significant expertise within both the mobile telecoms and ICT sectors. This knowledge and insight have enabled Reza to build market and customer segmentation models for the South African government, MTN and other clients to understand how different key stakeholder segments experience and understand the world, and how we can best interact with them.
Marcus Coetzee
Client Services
Marcus joined Citizen Surveys in 2008. He has a Master’s degree (summa cum laude) in Social Development and an Honours degree in Business Science. He has a management consulting background of 20 years where he developed strategies for social enterprises, government departments, and non-profit organisations. He has managed various large-scale social research projects, and provides organisational development support to Citizen Surveys. Marcus has a keen interest in social enterprises and entrepreneurship, and has lectured and written extensively on these topics.
Dr Jacques Elengmonke
Data Analyst / Statistician
Dr Jacques joined Citizen Surveys in 2016 with a Masters Degree (cum laude) and an Honours Degree in Population studies from University of the Western Cape (UWC). He has a five-year Licence degree in Statistics, from the Institut Supérieur de Statistique de Lubumbashi (DRC). Prior to joining us, Jacques worked as an analyst and statistics coach at the Division for Postgraduate Studies at UWC, where he mentored Masters and Doctorate students in research design and data analysis. He also worked as a research assistant at UWC’s Natural Science and Economic and Management Sciences faculties, and as a teaching assistant at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT).
Ebrahim January
National Operations Manager
Ebrahim joined Citizen Surveys in 2007 with a B.Admin degree in Public Administration from the University of Western Cape.
Leading national operations, he orchestrates surveys with meticulous precision and client focus. Fostering a collaborative team, Ebrahim ensures clear communication, minimizing risks. Clients benefit from predictable timelines, efficient operations, and a dedicated team. His meticulous planning ensures flawless survey execution, with assured data quality from recruitment to logistics. Clients experience minimized disruptions and actionable insights from high-quality data. Ebrahim actively seeks and implements cutting-edge tools, optimizing workflows for enhanced data quality and actionable insights.
Brendan Quinlivan
Senior Research Executive
Brendan joined Citizen Surveys in 2012. He has an honours degree in Business Science (Law) from the University of Cape Town. He has seven years’ prior experience in marketing and design, and professional writing for government departments and IT companies. Brendan designs and writes research reports, and creates infographics and dashboards to help our clients interpret and visualise data. He is also responsible for the user interface (UI) design on our enterprise quality management system.
Jamiela Fakir
Survey Manager
Jamiela joined Citizen Surveys in 2015. With over 25 years of experience leading complex survey operations across Africa and the Middle East, Jamiela brings a wealth of expertise to your survey. Her impressive journey began at TNS Research Surveys, culminating in leading all African and Middle Eastern operations at Millward Brown. Beyond geographical expansion, Jamiela’s expertise shines in building successful operations from the ground up. Establishing research offices in key markets like Kenya, Ghana, Dubai, Cairo, and Nigeria demonstrates her ability to cultivate efficient and effective systems. Her commitment to quality and compliance is further evidenced by her successful implementation of the rigorous ISO-20252 standard across the region. Her meticulous approach has fine-tuned survey processes at Citizen Surveys, ensuring maximum efficiency and effectiveness. This translates directly to flawless survey execution, unparalleled data quality, and actionable insights for clients.
Mariam Davids
Data Processing
Mariam joined Citizen Surveys in 2001, where she took over the reins of the data management department. She has over 25 years of experience in this role, having started her career with Research Surveys (now Kantar TNS). Mariam is responsible for overseeing data processing, the development of SPSS syntax to create the data tables and codebooks, the merging of weights into datasets, and leading our data cleaning processes and forensic data audits. She’s frequently called upon to mentor our analysts and clients in how to work with large datasets.
Dr Arianne Neethling
Sampling Specialist
Dr Neethling has been working with Citizen Surveys since 2006 on our sampling processes. She has a Master of Science (cum laude), from the University of Potchefstroom and a Doctorate in Science (Statistics) from the University of the Witwatersrand. She has worked with the Medical Research Council and the Human Sciences Research Council, and currently lectures at the Faculty of Military Science (University of Stellenbosch). She has published papers widely and is a member of the International Association of Survey Statisticians (IASS). Arianne also advises Stats SA on sampling methodology and is part of the team maintaining South Africa’s most updated national sample frame.
Dr Kenly Fenio
Senior Researcher
Dr Kenly Fenio started working with Citizen Surveys in 2016. She holds a PhD in Political Science (sub-Saharan Africa) from the University of Florida. Kenly is the Director of KGF Pesquisas e Associados in Mozambique, which she established after extensive experience in academia and the public sector. She has 15 years of experience in social research across Africa, including her work with the US Department of State: Office of Opinion Research, where she oversaw research across nine eastern and southern African countries. Kenly has also worked in the Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues, and as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Virginia Tech.
“Citizen Surveys set the standard for quality, exceeding the highest expectations of professionalism, ethics, and absolute reliability of their data.”
Dr Sarah M Brooks, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Ohio State University.