Dr Ngqangweni is an agricultural economist. He obtained his PhD in Agricultural Economics in 2000 from the University of Pretoria where he also lectured for seven years (2000 – 2006). He worked at the National Agricultural Marketing Council (NAMC) from 2006 to 2008 as a Senior Researcher before he left to join Government senior management as Director for Economic Services and later Director for Agroprocessing Support at the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) from 2009 to 2013. He returned to the NAMC in 2013 to become Senior Manager responsible for the Markets and Economic Research Centre (MERC), a position he occupied until September 2019. After a short tenure as Acting Chief Executive Officer (CEO) (October 2019 to March 2020), he was appointed in June 2020 as the CEO of the NAMC. As an academic he has published widely in the broad areas of agricultural and food policy, rural markets, land reform and agricultural economic development.