Richard van Huyssteen joined UCT in 1994 as the Science Faculty Manager, having started his career as a high school teacher. His involvement in IT started with a secondment in 1998 to a project which was tasked with replacing much of the UCT IT infrastructure. Following that, he led the follow-on project to replace the major student administrative systems, which ran from 2004 to 2006.

He then established the Student Systems Support division in the Office of the Registrar, of which he was the Director until 2013. In 2013, he was appointed as the Director of the Systems Division in ICTS.

Van Huyssteen is a founder member and past chair of the Southern African Higher Education User Group, and a member of the Oracle Higher Education Industry Strategy Council. He holds a BCom(Hons) in Information Systems, a BSc in Chemistry, and diplomas in education and project management.