Mr Errol Heynes is currently the executive director of Comsec.

At the end of 1991 various stakeholders from diverse organizations and community structures in Port Elizabeth came together to address the steady economic decline of the old Eastern Cape region. This resulted in the launch of the then Eastern Cape Regional Economic Development Forum (REDF) on the 23 February 1993.

The forum established four key working groups one of which was the Job Creation Working Group, chaired by Mr Errol Heynes.   This working group formed a trust to operate as a legal entity, and was first registered as the REDF Job Creation Trust with Errol Heynes as the first chairperson. With the demise of the Regional Economic Development Forum in late 1994 the trust changed its name to the Eastern Cape Job Creation Trust with Comsec (Community Self- Employment Centre) as its core project. The trust continued to operate with representation of members from all stakeholders of the Regional Economic Development Forum. It was very important at that stage in the Port Elizabeth area to create an all-inclusive body that would be politically acceptable to everybody.  

Comsec’s success can be attributed to the fact that it is driven by sound business principles and is managed and operated with superb systems and policies and also headed up by an individual with many years of management experience in the corporate sector.

Errol Heynes previously worked in the corporate environment for 17 years in various management positions.  He spent a large part of his life in community based sport and resistance organizations and served as Deputy Mayor in the first democratically elected Port Elizabeth City council and as head of Economic Development, concurrently. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Business Advisors and served as the first chairperson of the Coega Section 21 Co.

He has extensive international experience and negotiated and designed the Port Elizabeth/Gothenburg twin city partnership.

Mr Heynes, who is a member of the ANC and a strong leader in the coloured community, continues to fight for a non-racial society and for the Coloured community not to be marginalised within that society.