Nicole Jaff (Chairperson)

Nicole Jaff is a North American Menopause Society (NAMS) Certified Menopause Practitioner (NCMP), and a member of the Professional Board of Psychology (South Africa).  She is a Menopause Counselor at the Wendy Appelbaum Institute for Women’s Health, Wits University Donald Gordon Medical Centre and a PhD Research Fellow with an interest in global women’s health issues. She is a trustee of the Helen Suzman Foundation and the Javett Foundation.

Nicholas Jaff (CEO)

Nicholas Jaff is founder and CEO of the Bright Kid Foundation, a non-profit organization, started in 2000. Bright Kid Foundation converts shipping containers primarily into pre-school classrooms called Edutainers®, which form part of Early Childhood Development Centres (ECDCs), delivered to rural areas throughout South Africa. The initial focus of Bright Kid Foundation was to improve the poor standard of Early Childhood Development in South Africa by delivering these Edutainers® (containers extensively converted in to fully equipped bright, insulated classrooms) to trained teachers mainly to rural communities in need.Since 2000, over 354 Edutainers® have been delivered throughout South Africa. To date over 57,000 children have graduated form the Edutainers® and 708 teachers have been trained. The ECDCs are designed to transform rural communities. The ECDC Edutainers® are fully equipped preschool for use in early learning.  They include adult furniture so that after school hours, the Edutainers® can be used by adults and unemployed youth for training in employable skills.

To achieve the goals of the Bright Kind Foundation, and to ensure sustainability and community acceptance, Nicholas works closely and effectively with government departments, particularly the Department of Social Development, municipalities, recipient communities (civil society), non-profit organizations and private corporations. The ECDCs include the entire infrastructure required for registration and subsequent per child per day subsidy from the Department of Social development. USA donors include GE, Citigroup (30 Edutainer® classrooms), UPS, USAID.  UNICEF has endorsed the ECDC project.

Nicholas has degrees from Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK, the Victoria University, of Manchester, UK, and Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA.  He is a director of companies and serves on several boards.

Lebogang Rafout

Lebogang (Lebo) Rafout is a Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (BB-BEE) Specialist and has been in this field for nearly a decade, as an analyst in several BB-BEE verification agencies to being  the overall BB-BEE manager in multinational firms. Lebo holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Wits University and a Post Graduate Diploma in BBBEE Management Development Program from the University of South Africa’s Graduate School of Business Leadership, she is the founder of the Good Works Projects, whose flagship initiative is Promoting Professions.

Peter Leon

Peter Leon is a partner with Webber Wentzel (in alliance with Linklaters), Johannesburg, where he heads the firm's mining regulatory practice.  Outside South Africa, he has advised on resources issues in major African mining jurisdictions including Botswana, Ghana. Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.  He has also advised the Nigerian government on its new mining code and provided similar advice in Eritrea.

Peter is a previous chair of the International Bar Association's mining law committee where he led its award-winning best practice model mine development agreement project for developing countries. He was recently recognised as one of the world's top twenty mining lawyers by the International Who's Who of Mining Lawyers.

Peter Leon currently serves on the council of the IBA's legal practice division and is an honorary lecturer at the Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy at the University of Dundee, Scotland.

During South Africa's State of Emergency, he served as chair of Lawyers for Human Rights, Johannesburg. Elected to the Gauteng legislature in 1994, he served as provincial leader of the Democratic Party and as leader of the official opposition between 1995 and 2000.

Peter Leon holds a BA (with distinction in Roman Law), LLB (cum laude) from the University of Cape Town and a LLM (with First Class Honours) from the University of Cambridge, where he was elected Senior Scholar of Christ's College.

Sibusiswe Ndlovu

Sibusiswe (Busi) Ndlovo is a Director in Accord Kalos Academy, a business consulting company, co- founded with her husband, consulting in the Public Service and NGO sectors. She has extensive experience in the field of education - from ECD to high school. She has a BA from UNISA, a BA Honours from University of Johannesburg (RAU), and a Diploma in Management Advancement Programme (MAP) from Wits Business School.

Justine O'Reilly

Solicitor and Mediator, Justine is currently working as a Solicitor for the  Legal Aid Commission in New South Wales, Australia,  and as a Mediator at a Family Relationship Centre.  She has an MBA from the University of Witswatersrand and a BA in Development Studies from Brown University.

A.J. Phillips

Previously CEO of Barloworld Ltd. remains active as a non-executive director of a number of listed and unlisted Companies in southern Africa and served as a  director of WWF in SA for 10 years and remain as chairman of the Finance committee.

Sonja van der Vyver

Sonja Brink (van der Vyver) a PhD Research fellow and an early childhood educationist and rural community development practitioner. Sonja has been involved as project manager in a whole-community development project, at a rural settlement for the past eight years. She also conducts research on educational linguistics and early reading acquisition – specifically on how these pertain to African children from resource-poor backgrounds.