Cronje was born in 1970 or 1971.[1] She grew up on the Cape FlatsofCape Town. Among other places, her family spent time in Atlantis, Elsies River and Athlone.[2] After finishing high school, she attended the University of Cape Town, where she was the first black woman to serve as president of the student representative council.[2] She completed a BA in 1993 and an LLB in 1996.[3] 15 years later, while working as a prosecutor, she resumed her education at the Harvard Kennedy School, where she obtained an MPA in 2010.[3] She was admitted as an advocate of the High Court of South Africa in 2000.[4]
In 2012, Cronje left the NPA to work in private practice at the Cape Bar.[2] From 2013 onwards, she was an expert consultant to the Stolen Assets Recovery Initiative, a joint international asset recovery initiative of the World Bank and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).[5] In that capacity, she advised asset recovery and anti-corruption units in various countries;[3] she worked for several years on establishing and assisting the Tanzanian prosecuting authority's Asset Forfeiture and Recovery Section.[1] In addition, she was the author of a 2017 UNODC study on the management of confiscated assets.[3]
In 2019, Cronje was recruited by the incumbent NDPP, Shamila Batohi, to consult on the design of the NPA's Investigating Directorate (ID), which was to be established inside the NDPP's office with a mandate to investigate and prosecute corruption and related offences.[6][7] On 17 May 2019, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that he had appointed Cronje to become the ID's inaugural director.[8] Her appointment received a broad welcome,[9][10] including from Corruption Watch.[11]
She was appointed to a five-year term beginning on 15 May 2019.[3] However, in December 2021, she announced her premature resignation from the ID.[12] The Sunday Times reported that her decision to leave was rumoured to stem from frustration at a skills shortage within the NPA that prevented the organisation from pursuing major state capture prosecutions,[13] while the Daily Maverick suggested that a lack of political will had presented a similar obstacle.[14] There were also rumours that her relationship with Batohi had deteriorated as a result of this frustration.[15] Batohi denied these rumours.[16][17] The Sunday Times later published a leaked copy of Cronje's resignation letter, in which she referred to the toll of the job on her health and family.[18]
She remained at the ID until 1 March 2022, when she was replaced by Andrea Johnson.[19] From 1 June that year, she worked part-time in the legal unit of Open Secrets, a non-profit organisation run by activist Hennie van Vuuren.[20] In November 2023, press quoted her despairing of a "skills catastrophe" in the NPA.[21]
Cronje is married and has two children.[1] During her first year at the ID, she commuted between Pretoria and Cape Town, where her children attended school.[22]
