Professors of Practice

Valter is recognised as an expert in the fields of disruptive innovation, business re-imagination and emerging technologies in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, where he does most of his work. Valter is the Chief Executive, and Digital Leader for Cadena Growth Partners, a digital and innovation advisory, and venturing organisation that operates at the intersect of strategic and innovation thinking with emerging digital technologies and rapid commercialisation.

He guides organisations beyond potential disruption, towards creating new opportunities for relevance, growth and expansion by contextualising and leveraging the potential and economics of emerging technologies and disruptive trends.

Valter is a corporate entrepreneur with extensive experience in venturing and commercialising businesses across a number of industries, and works with the CEOs of leading organisations to conceive, develop and scale innovative opportunities and IP into high growth, sustainable businesses.

He is the former Chief Digital and Innovation office for Deloitte, managing and founding partner for Monitor Deloitte and managing partner for Deloitte Digital in Africa. He was also part of Deloitte’s Global Innovation Executive. He is a faculty member of Singularity University, a Tedx Speaker, and the recipient of the Constellation Transformation 150 award, which recognises the top global executives leading digital business transformation efforts. He was recently awarded as the Big 4 professional of the year, by The South African Professional Services Academy, who also recognized him as a top Professional in South Africa’s Digital Industry. Valter holds an MSc and an MBA, he has trained with Roger Martin as a master strategist and is the recipient of numerous academic awards. He is a Professor of Practice at the Johannesburg Business School.

Leon Ayo has consulted and led teams across four continents. He specialises in Leadership, High Performance Teams, Agile Thinking, Entrepreneurship, Business Development and helping organisations navigate the 4th Industrial Revolution. He has been a visiting lecturer at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Lancaster, Birmingham, Cape Town and Stellenbosch as well as Warwick & Cranfield Business Schools. He is a board advisor and consults on Leadership, strategy, driving growth and transformation through disruptive training & helping organisations embrace technology and digital communication channels.

Leadership – Proven leader with a track record of developing loyal, highly motivated and high performing teams. Events – Keynote speaker, facilitator and MC with 18 years of experience in presenting and facilitating. Commercial – Proven track record of developing and delivering new products, services and consultancy offerings to clients, achieving significant additional revenue streams. Business Development / Project Delivery – Consistently delivered high sales figures through energetic and innovative business development activities and developing efficient delivery models. Communication – An accomplished communicator in French and English who delivers lectures at the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Birmingham, Lancaster, Cape Town, Stellenbosch and Henley Africa, University of Cape Town. Board Level Experience – Further to advising and working with Boards & Leadership Teams on retained searches and executive development programs I have personal experience as a board member and am well networked in the Southern African Board Community.

Steve’s education includes a Ph.D. from Wits University, a Development Programme in Labour Relations from UNISA and an Executive Development Programme from the University of Michigan.

Steve was the Head of the Psychology Department and the Professor of Industrial Psychology at Wits University and spent a sabbatical at Queen’s University, Canada.

He joined SA Breweries in 1993 and, in 2000, was appointed HR Director, SAB Africa and Asia. In 2002, he was appointed HR Director of the South African operation, a position he held for 8,5 years. In 2011, he joined GIBS as an HR professor and also joined the MAC Consulting Group as Associate Director. From 2014-2017 Steve headed up Wits Business School. He is a Professor of Practice at the Johannesburg Business School, and also runs a Human Capital consulting business.

Cam is the co-founder of the Conscious Leadership Institute. His work focuses on assisting leaders and their teams to re-envision future direction and opportunity amid the turbulence of personal, organisational, and societal change.

Cam has designed and conducted executive development programmes for global organisations such as Aditya Birla Group, Brambles, Danone, FedEx, The Halls Group, Hollard, Kohler Company, The Nature Conservancy, Rolls-Royce, SCOR, Schneider Electric, Trane Technologies, and Volvo Financial Services.

His research has appeared in The Integral Leadership Review, The Monroe Institute Journal, Academy of Management Executive, Human Resource Development Quarterly, Business Horizons, and The American Benedictine Review. His recent research on the effects of long-term practices in meditation on leadership effectiveness is featured in his book, Beyond the Horizon: Glimpses into the Lives of Exceptional Leaders (2015).

Cam’s background includes 15 years leading the office of executive education at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, one year as a speechwriter for the President of Indiana University, and two years as the Executive Officer for the Commander of the 384th Air Refueling Wing, USAF. He is a member of the faculty at CEDEP, Fontainebleau, France and a Professor of Practice at the Johannesburg Business School, South Africa. Cam and his wife, Dr. Pamela Fuhrmann, reside in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Having previously led and owned South Africa’s top strategic and creative consultancy – Interbrand Africa, Doug is well regarded as one of Africa’s leading brand marketing experts, and has led the development and growth of many of the country and continents high performing brands.

Doug is a CM(SA) with a background in economics, industrial psychology, international business and marketing. He has held an executive faculty position at Strathmore Business School since 2007, where he regularly lectures on “the Business of Brands”. He is also a regular lecturer on digital marketing at the Deloitte Alchemy Business School.

Doug has also guest lectured at the Fletcher School, Oxford Said Business School, GIBS, UJ, UNW, Vega and Bentley Business School, and has participated and delivered multiple panels on Business and Branding in Africa at Oxford’s Said Business School and Harvard Business School Africa week.

A regular media commentator on marketing, Doug has also authored multiple papers on business and branding, and was a contributing author to the book “Doing Business in Africa” (Games,2012,Penguin). Doug recently led the brand, advertising, marketing and commerce offering as a Director of Deloitte Consulting Africa. He was also an Advisory Director of the New York based global International Trademark Association (INTA) where he co-Chaired the special taskforce on Brand Valuation. The resulting report was released in April 2020 as the definitive guide for INTA members regarding the practice of brand valuation.

Doug was also a long-serving Director of the South Africa Marketing Association (MASA). He is the owner of Fastrack, a leading digital agile integrated marketing consultancy and is an Associate Professor of Practice at UJ’s Johannesburg Business School (JBS).

Chief Executive of African business advisory, Africa @ Work, Dianna is a leading commentator on business issues, trends and developments in Africa. Originally from Zimbabwe, Dianna has travelled extensively around the continent over the past three decades, visiting more than 30 countries.

She specialises in corporate engagements on and in Africa, and has done research into regional economic developments and corporate/government investment trends, sector analysis for private clients, and tracks business developments in Africa’s key markets. She has led a number of immersions into Nigeria for South African corporates.

Clients for her advisory work, African business research and writing engagements include NEPAD, COMESA, Development Bank of Southern Africa, South African Institute for International Affairs, Chatham House, Johannesburg Business School, Brenthurst Foundation, DFID, Commonwealth, Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS), the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, Standard Bank, Nedbank, Group Five as well as companies in Southern and West Africa.

She is the author of the book Business in Africa: Corporate Insights published by Penguin in 2012 and reprinted in 2013. She has contributed chapters to many other books including:

Africa to Africa Internationalization: Key Issues and Outcomes (Palgrave MacMillan, 2016), Africans Investing in Africa (Brenthurst Foundation and Tony Elumelu Foundation, 2015).
The Changing Dynamics of International Business in Africa, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).
Going Global: Insights from South Africa’s Top Companies (GIBS & MME Media, 2012).

Dianna is also the author of many published reports on African business issues dating back to 2008 for various academic institutions on issues related to business in Africa. Her most recent was a paper for the Brenthurst Foundation – The African Continental Free Trade Area: Silver Bullet or Pipe Dream? (2021). Dianna was also a columnist on Africa for Business Day newspaper in South Africa since 2003 and is a regulator contributor to African Business magazine.

She heads up the South Africa-Nigeria Business Chamber, a bilateral organisation established in 2005 to drive trade and investment between Africa’s biggest markets.

She is also regular guest lecturer and speaker at conferences and business schools on issues ranging from trade in Africa, energy entrepreneurship, business trends and African political economy.

Tim is the CEO of Wesgro, the Tourism, Trade & Investment Promotion Agency for Cape Town and the Western Cape.

As the former Shadow Minister of Finance for South Africa’s official opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), he was the lead spokesperson on the economy and worked as a lawmaker on South Africa’s national budget, tax laws and financial legislation

Tim has established himself as a well published thought leader on policy in Africa. He has deep connections and networks across the continent and has on-the-ground experience in 30 African countries.

He has a Masters in Economics and a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature, has worked on five election campaigns and has led teams responsible for policy development, communications and campaign events.

Tim is an Associate Professor of Practice at Johannesburg Business School, a Senior Advisor to the Harambe Entrepreneur Alliance, the leading network of entrepreneurs on the African continent, and a member of the Cape Town Chapter of YPO. He currently sits on the board of the Cape Town Film Studios, the Grabouw Development Agency, the Atlantis Special Economic Zone, and CapeBPO – the call centre industry body in the Western Cape.

Bonang is the Chancellor of the University of the Free State, Professor of Practice at the Johannesburg Business School (JBS), Chairman of both The Bidvest Group Limited and SBV Services, and is a member of the Community of Chairmen in the World Economic Forum.

He is a highly respected South African businessman, who is known as much for his patriotism and his active role in seeking to advance the country’s interests.

He is the past president of the BMF and Author of the best-selling book, ‘Lift as You Rise’, launched in November 2018, a compilation of some of his spoken and written words in which Mohale reveals the issues he is passionate about – among them leadership, transformation, social justice, people development, constructive collaboration and integrity.

Bonang was the Chief Executive Officer of Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) until 30 June 2019 – a forum which brings together the leadership of South Africa’s most successful and influential big business and multinational investors to exchange ideas, facilitate effective dialogue with government and other stakeholders, and advocate for pro-business, economically sustainable policies and programmes. Prior to joining BLSA, Bonang ended a distinguished term as Vice President, Upstream and Chairman of Shell Oil Products Africa (SOPAF) on the 30 June 2017.

Bonang, who originally studied to be a medical doctor, has had a distinguished career at the helm of and in leadership roles at several major South African and multinational companies; including Otis Elevators, South African Airways (SAA), Sanlam Limited and Tsebo Outsourcing’s Drake & Scull Integrated Facilities Management. He currently serves on the Boards of Swiss Re Africa Limited and Rand Merchant Bank Limited (RMB).

Bonang has an impressive track record of building successful companies, delivering results and making significant advances in transformation in the companies he has been privileged to lead. He is a change agent, defender of democracy, social  justice activist and has been a vocal, courageous and active proponent of transformation since the 1980s, and played a leadership role in the Black Management Forum (BMF) for over 33 years, where he was the president.

Recognition Awards:-

• Awarded the Free Market Foundation “Luminary Award for 2019” – In recognition of the outstanding courage and integrity he has displayed, through difficult times, in his contributions to the business community and for defending the rights of all South Africans.
• Winner of the Forbes Woman Africa Male Gender Advocate Award for 2019
• BMF Lifetime Achievement Award in March 2019
• Awarded “The Momentum Friendship Blazer” as recognition for being the ‘first RSA Nation Building Champion’ in 2015.
• Winner of both the Country (RSA) and Regional (SADC) “TITANS – BUILDING THE NATION” 2014 CEO Magazine Awards.
• Bonang was conferred with an Honorary Professorship in Marketing Management by the University of Pretoria, where he serves on their Advisory Council since 1992.
• 2012 IPM CEO of the Year.
• SA Facilities Management Association 2007 ‘PERSONALITY OF THE YEAR’
• 1997 Black Management Forum’s (BMF) MANAGER OF THE YEAR.
• Received the PRESIDENTIAL AWARD for his “Servanthood in South African Industry and the Economic Empowerment of Previously Disadvantaged Individuals” – 2001.

Kamal is a corporate executive and entrepreneur with experience across global multinational corporations and local Southern African businesses. He has a blend of corporate executive roles, management consultant roles and entrepreneurial ventures. As a corporate executive, he has led and operated medium and large corporate businesses, focused on digital transformation, and product and market development. He has held the position of CEO at Juta, a publisher in the higher education and legal information sectors. In this role he was responsible for digital transformation of the business from a traditional publisher into a digital business. He also held the roles of Head of Corporate and Head of Strategy & Operations at the multinational information company Thomson Reuters’ Africa region. In this role he was responsible for developing and implementing the Africa growth strategy for the business and growing the corporate market segment. As a management consultant, he held roles at multinational firms leading strategy, growth, and transformation. In his roles at both Accenture and KPMG Consulting he led strategy and transformation projects at various Southern African financial services clients focussing on strategy, growth and operational efficiency. As an Entrepreneur, he has hands-on experience founding and growing businesses across manufacturing, property development, technology and consulting. He is currently focussed on Treptor, a consulting firm that focuses on providing strategic, operational, and board advisory services to technology-based start-ups that have been venture capital-funded and have high growth potential. Kamal holds a Masters in Business Administration from GIBS, a Post Graduate Diploma in Architecture from UKZN and a Bachelor in Architectural Studies from WITS. His is a member of Young Presidents Organisation, a global network of CEOs and is a Professor of Practice at the Johannesburg Business School.

Dino is a director of CCI-GrowthCon, a specialised consulting firm in the area of Operations and Supply Chain Excellence. He is also the CEO of Next Renewable Generation (NrG) in Africa.

Prior to his current roles, Dino worked in the Automotive and FMCG industries in business leadership and strategic development positions at PG Glass, Anglo American and SABMiller.

Dino obtained both his MSc and PhD Degrees in Industrial Engineering from the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg). He is registered as a Professional Engineer in South Africa, as well as a Chartered Engineer in the UK. In 2008, Dino received the international Martin K. Starr Excellence in Production and Operations Management Practice (POMS) Award in recognition of major contributions to the field.

Dino is a POMS Board member as VP Africa/Middle East and is also active in academic and industry circles as follows:

• Johannesburg Business School – Supply Chain & Operation Management.
• Member of the Advisory Board for the Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.
• Member of the Industry Advisory Committee of the School of Mechanical, Industrial and Aeronautical Engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg, South Africa).
• Independent Advisor & Panel member for the Clothing & Textiles Competitive Programme of the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa.

Al-Noor is a transformational leader focused on developing collaborative strategies that further the goals of his customers, internal and external stakeholders, and the community. He has illustrated his business acumen by consistently outperforming industry trends in both growing, and contracting, markets. His business exposure includes education, FMCG, IT, telecoms and steel.

He is the CEO of ISCTEM, the premier private educational institution in Mozambique; Non-Executive Director at Pegasus Universal Aerospace; Director at Modus-Digital SA; and Director of JCM Schools Mozambique, and he serves the community in various capacities including President of the Canada-Mozambique Chamber of Commerce & Industry, as well as Senator of the World Business Angels Investment Forum.

Richard joined Distell in November 2013. He has extensive experience across the alcoholic beverage industry that spans more than 20 years in diverse emerging markets. Over the past seven years, Richard has overseen the transformation of Distell by investing behind and building a world-class production footprint, growing its Africa route-to-market, ramping up product innovation and focusing its international business into a more profitable Premium Spirits business.

Richard was born in Johannesburg and attended Pretoria Boys High School. After obtaining a BCom degree at the University of Witwatersrand, he worked for Barclays and Adcock Ingram before joining SABMiller plc in the late 1990s.  During his formative years at SABMiller, working closely with the Coca-Cola Company and the Angolan government, Richard was responsible for the first sizeable South African post-apartheid investment in Angola.

In 1999, he was appointed Group Managing Director of SABMiller’s beer, soft drinks and sorghum business interests in Botswana. In 2001 he moved to India, where the-then SA Breweries had acquired a small start-up brewery in Uttar Pradesh in Northern India. He spent five years building the business and by the time he was transferred to the group’s Latin American operations, the business held a third of the Indian beer market.

Richard’s new assignment as head of SABMiller’s operations in Ecuador saw him leading the integration and modernisation of SABMiller’s operations. After three years in Ecuador, he was promoted to Regional Managing Director of Central America with responsibility for Panama, Honduras, El Salvador and Ecuador. At the beginning of 2011, Richard was appointed President of Bavaria, SABMiller’s beer business in Colombia. At the time, Bavaria was the group’s largest contributor to group profits after the combined South African beer and soft drink operations.

Richard speaks Spanish fluently and is an enthusiastic golfer and follower of global business and economic developments. He is married to Tracy, and they have two children, Matthew and Laura.

Areas of experience:

• Building businesses in emerging markets
• Getting the balance right between strategy, execution and performance
• Leading multi-cultural teams
• Leadership in turbulent and rapidly changing environments

Hobbies and interests:

• Playing golf and riding MTB (love plodding at the back in stage races!)
• Travel, when he has the time
• Loves cooking and has done one cooking holiday in Venice with Tracy and Laura
• Mad South African sports fan!
• Reading when he has time, including business books, such as ‘The Excellence Dividend’ by Tom Peters. He also reads daily and avidly about topical world events.

Steve has over 35 years of experience in diverse areas of business, media production, technology, artificial intelligence telecommuni-cations, information management, mobile development, blockchain/crypto development and private equity. He has worked at operational, executive and board levels. Having qualified with an MSc (Computer Science) from UCLA in 1979, Steve spent 17 years in California. This was the Cambrian period of technological development, particularly on the West Coast of the US, and he was fortunate enough to touch a great deal of new technology. This included working as an engineer on the Space program at Hughes, followed by designing video games at Tronix and Sidley Wright (where he co-authored 4 successful games), a stint as an artificial intelligence researcher at Citicorp research in Los Angeles, followed by designing computer peripherals, and founding one of Los Angeles’ most successful computer animation companies, Sidley Wright, sold to National Video Systems in 1994.

Steve returned to SA in 1995 where he initially directed commercials for GateHouse and later managed the film and Internet divisions of VWW productions. He subsequently joined Prism Technologies as executive director, operating in the payment technology and crypto space, and which was listed on the JSE in 2000. He has subsequently held a number of high-level positions executive and board positions in blue chip companies including world-wide Group CTO for Anglo American plc and Group CTO at Altech/Altron , as well as successfully co-founding, building and selling two companies and working on private equity and VC transactions.

Steve is currently a partner at Bridge Capital, and is Head of the Blockchain and the Cryptoverse Research Unit at UJ’s Institute for Future Knowledge. In 2021 Steven Sidley and Simon Dingle were signed by Icon Books in the UK to write Beyond Bitcoin: Decentralised Finance and the End of Banks, launched globally in February 2022, now on shelves on 5 continents. He is also the award-winning and mulri-shortlisted author of 5 novels, and a columnist for Daily Maverick, covering crypto and blockchain.

Glenn has over 30 years’ experience working in the global asset management industry, including diverse areas such as asset allocation, manager selection, investment process design and corporate strategy. He has a particular interest in the BRICS, Responsible Investing (ESG,) and certain key investment topics including Megatrends and Financial Repression.  He co-authored a book in 2014 on the BRICS, entitled HalfWay There, to some acclaim.

Glenn joined RisCura as a consultant and strategic advisor in early 2020 as a non-executive on the RisCura Global Investment Committee (GIC) and its various sub-committees. He is involved with various strategic projects and also chairs the RisCura Investment Risk Oversight Committee.

Glenn started his career as a senior manager at Liberty Asset Management (now STANLIB) before moving to Rand Merchant Bank Asset Management (now Momentum/Aluwani), as a senior portfolio manager. In 1999 he was appointed as the Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of Investment Solutions (IS, now Alexander Forbes Investments), South Africa’s largest multi-manager, where he served for 17 years. He subsequently left IS to establish his consulting firm, during which time he consulted to various financial services organisations in South Africa, Africa and offshore. His clients included the likes of Sasfin Wealth, MCBIM, STANLIB, and Novare (acting CIO).  He currently consults primarily to RisCura and Anchor Stockbrokers, he is a member of the CFA SA Governance and Oversight Committee, and is also a board member of a non-profit organisation.

Herman is based in Johannesburg, South Africa, although he travels very often and operates in many countries in Asia, Africa and Europe.

Herman is an innovative business thinker and a high impact player with an unusual mix of Business, Technology, Leadership and Creative Skills that position him uniquely for roles to lead the march to the new Digital Economy. A naturally innovative thinker, he has led and guided many disruptive businesses in the ongoing convergence of Technology and Business for over 20 years.

As a great and motivational public speaker, Herman is in high demand for conferences and often acts as a keynote speaker for internal company strategy events.

Herman graduated from Wits University with a Degree in Engineering, a Post Graduate qualification in Industrial Engineering, and an MBA. He has co-authored a text book that is now into its third edition. Herman serves as a Professor at the Graduate School of Business at UCT and adjunct faculty at Duke University, University of Johannesburg and at The Gordon Institute of Business Science in Johannesburg. He has worked, facilitated and spoken around the world and has served as the Chairman of the Solution Space, which is an Incubation Laboratory at the University of Cape Town. Herman also sits on the Advisory board for the Faculty of Engineering at Wits.

Herman commenced his career in the manufacturing sector and moved to consulting and advisory work in 1994 at Monitor Consulting, before taking a role as Managing Director in the Siemens Company in 1996 to lead a large scale turn-around of the Industry Division responsible for Sub-Saharan Africa (13 countries) between 1996 and 2000. The business continues to operate successfully over 15 years after his departure.

He joined Standard Bank in 2000, as the Director of Online Services. He led the bank’s foray into Internet Banking, one of the world’s first national rollouts of smart cards and continued to pioneer Fintech innovations with mobile banking JV’s in 2003 (one of the first globally), and operated one of the first African Fintech business incubators (Beyond Payments) from 2007 until 2012. He also joined the board of Eccentric Switch, a payments processor.

In 2012 Herman moved into the role of Managing Executive of Mobile Commerce Vodacom, where he successfully launched and managed a short term insurance business, a life assurance business, and a mobile wallet. He then moved to MTN in 2015 where he served in the role of Group Chief Digital Officer for four years. This role carried a profit and loss responsibility of over a billion Dollars. His broad portfolio entailed serving on seven boards, as well as in advisory capacities in multiple industry level initiatives.

Herman developed three distinct capabilities in the Digital World:  Creating digital means for customers to interact with the firm via new channels and devices; digitising the internal processes of the firm; and creating digitised products and services and disruptive business models.

Herman has over 20 years’ experience leading technical teams that were involved in those three areas in order to deliver new business development, change and large scale IT developments, as well as tactical IT start-up initiatives. He is accordingly comfortable to operate at senior levels while still engaging daily with rapid application development teams across multiple verticals.

In March 2016, Zukie Siyotula, CA (SA), ACMA, MBA, joined the World Economic Forum’s young global leaders under the age of 40. Zukie was also previously named as one of the 2011 Mail & Guardian top 200 young South Africans. Zukie currently serves as an independent non-executive director on various listed, unlisted, and public sector boards, such as Bidvest Group and Wescoal Holdings, to name a couple. She is not a typical CA in that she has been a GM and CEO of businesses, therefore having a keen understanding of what businesses go through to help management convert strategy. She can be described as present, solutions orientated, easy to work with and someone who does not shy away from difficult conversations. Zukie is entrepreneurial and dynamic and has personally been very active in the World Economic Forum (WEF), “Workplace of the Future”, which is about how companies become relevant to consumers and she believes that to achieve this, a good digital strategy is key. Her diverse professional experience ranges from general management, finance, corporate governance, strategy, restructuring, business development, through to sales and distribution. Prior to joining the Thebe group, Zukie held various senior positions at Barclays Africa, Old Mutual Retail Mass, Royal Bafokeng Holdings and South African Breweries. In recognition of her outstanding leadership and achievements, Zukie is a Desmond Tutu Fellow and an International Woman’s Forum (IWF) Fellow, where she is the youngest member of the invitation only South African Chapter (IWFSA). She is the founding member of the African Leadership Network (ALN), an invitation only network of dynamic African leaders and is a member of Graca Machel’s “New Faces New Voices” (NFNV) network which advocates for change in business and finance by harnessing the potential of women in Africa. Zukie is the recipient of a number of business awards in recognition of her, vision, leadership, and achievements. She was awarded the prestigious Fortune Most Powerful Women Global Mentoring Exchange Program in New York and the Vital Choices Global Ambassadors Program and is part of their Global Leadership Network. Zukie is passionate about business, the advancement of women in business and transformation. In honour of recognising the importance of human rights in the empowerment of young women, she fearlessly climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in 2015 to raise funds for sanitary pads for previously disadvantaged young girls in South Africa.