Ahmed Bawa is the CEO of Universities South Africa. Until 2016, he was Vice-Chancellor and Principal of Durban University of Technology. He also served as Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the Durban Centre of the University of Natal (later to be the University of KwaZulu-Natal).

At the City University of New York, he was faculty member in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Hunter College and a member of the doctoral faculty at the Graduate Center. He was appointed Associate Provost for Curriculum Development. He holds a PhD in Theoretical Physics from Durham University in the UK.

As the Program Officer for Higher Education in Africa with the Ford Foundation he led the Foundation’s African Higher Education Initiative. In this portfolio he worked in South Africa, Namibia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, Egypt and Palestine.

He serves on a number of advisory boards such as the South African Institute of Distance Education, the Centre for the Aids Programme of Research of South Africa and the Higher Education Support Programme of the Open Society Foundation.