Programme Director and Facilitator

Lacea Loader is Senior Director: Communication and Marketing at the University of the Free State (UFS), South Africa, responsible for institutional communication and marketing and providing high-level strategic support to the executive management.

She is an internationally acclaimed communication specialist and member of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC).

Lacea was national Chairperson of the South African Association for Marketing, Advancement and Communication in Education (MACE) from 2016 to 2017 and served as MACE Regional Chairperson from 2014 to 2015. She has been Coordinator of the MACE Excellence Awards Programme since 2018.

She has been an evaluator for the IABC Africa Blue Ribbon and the IABC Gold Quill Panel since 2012, and has served on the evaluation panel of the IABC Golden Flame Awards of the Atlanta Chapter, USA, and the IABC Heritage Region Silver Quill Awards (this awards programme serves 17 states in the USA).

In 2019, she served on an international team appointed by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) to revise and expand the communication strategy of the Pan African University (PAU). She worked in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and in Nairobi, Kenya to complete the project.

Her academic qualifications include a BA degree in Communication, a BA honours degree in Communication, a BA honours degree in Language Studies, and a master’s degree in Higher Education Studies.