Appointment of new Chief Executive of the IRR

The Council of the IRR has confirmed the Board's appointment of Dr John Endres as the new Chief Executive of the IRR, taking over from Dr Frans Cronje, who will be stepping down at the end of the year. Dr Endres will be the seventh Chief Executive of the IRR, which was founded in 1929.

Dr Endres has been associated with the IRR for over a decade, most recently as its Chief of Staff since 2020. He holds a doctorate in commerce and economics from the WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management, as well as a Master’s in Translation Studies from the University of the Witwatersrand. He has extensive management experience in the retail and services industries as well as the non-profit sector, having previously worked for the liberal Friedrich Naumann Foundation and as founding CEO of Good Governance Africa, an advocacy organisation.

In his response to the appointment, Dr Endres said: "The IRR has been enormously influential in South Africa's history, first as a principled opponent of apartheid and after 1994 as an unwavering promoter of non-racialism, free markets, individual liberty and the rule of law. I am deeply honoured to be entrusted with carrying the Institute's liberal legacy into the future as it approaches the centenary of its founding."

Dr Cronje said that: "I think that John is a very high calibre choice and that South Africa’s liberal tradition is in the most capable hands. South Africa and the free world more broadly is at a perilous junction as the liberal institutions of freedom of speech, markets, individualism, and the rule of law come under ever more withering attack. For almost 100 years the fighting spirit of the IRR has stood up to such attacks with great effect and I have little doubt that John will continue that tradition.”  

Dr Frans Cronje, CEO
Dr John Endres, Chief of Staff.

Issued by the IRR, 28 May 2021