JSE-listed private education group Advtech has appointed Heidi de Groot as Group People and Culture Executive. She starts on 1 January 2027. The group announced the appointment on 2 November 2026 and tied it to its goal of becoming the employer of choice in both of its operating sectors, education and resourcing.
De Groot has more than 30 years of human resources leadership experience at large multinational organisations. Her work spans organisational transformation, leadership development, talent management, employee engagement and the digitisation of people practices. She is listed as HR Director at AVI, and before that role she spent 12 years as the HR director at Johnson Controls.
Group Chief Executive Geoff Whyte said De Groot was joining at an exciting stage in Advtech’s development. He said her experience would be invaluable as the group works towards its employer-of-choice goal in education and resourcing. She arrives as the group goes through one of its biggest structural changes in years. Its workforce now covers private schools, tertiary campuses in several African countries and a recruitment business.
| Advtech interim results (six months to 30 June) | 2026 | 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Group revenue | R5,059.6m | R4,683.0m | +8% |
| Operating profit | R1,114.8m | R982.2m | +14% |
| Operating margin | 22.0% | 21.0% | +1 point |
| Tertiary division revenue | R2,243m | – | +17% |
| Tertiary division operating profit | R592m | – | +19% |
Source: Advtech interim results
De Groot is joining a business that is still growing fast. Group revenue grew by 8% to R5,060 million for the six months ended 30 June 2026, driven by a 13% increase in the Education Division. Normalised earnings rose 16% to R717 million over the same period. Whyte told The Money Show that enrolments were up 13% year-on-year, with the tertiary business up 19%.
Much of that tertiary growth comes from a brand overhaul that also changes how the group works internally. Advtech brought Varsity College, Vega, MSA and HSM together under the Emeris brand, and relaunched Rosebank College as Rosebank International. Its new R420m Emeris campus in Sandton opened in February. Merging institutions that each had their own staff structures and cultures into one brand is a people job as much as a marketing one, and that work now falls under the new executive.
Expansion will add to that workload. Plans are under way for a new Durban campus that will initially accommodate 8,000 students, and Emeris and Rosebank College are both expected to apply for university status once government publishes the criteria. Outside South Africa, Rosebank International University College in Accra, Ghana, Advtech’s first tertiary institution on the continent, welcomed its inaugural cohort in January 2026. To move towards university status and run new campuses, the group will need to recruit and keep academic staff in a competitive market.
Resourcing is the harder part of the employer-of-choice goal. In 2025 the resourcing division accounted for 16% of group revenue (R1.46bn) and 4.6% of profits (R93m). This year the South African resourcing operation saw revenue decline, with Whyte saying companies were delaying hiring decisions. A recruitment business does better when it handles its own talent well, which gives De Groot’s experience with digitised people practices a commercial use beyond internal HR.
The appointment fills a senior seat as Advtech heads into its 2027 academic year with new campuses opening, merged brands bedding in and university applications pending. Over the next year the group will be measured on how well it holds on to the people behind its enrolment growth, as well as on student numbers.