The Presidents

Richard Calland is one of South Africa’s most incisive political analysts. During a fifteen year career at IDASA, he also founded a number of organizations, including the Parliamentary Monitoring Group (PMG), the DGRU and Judges Matter, as well as the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (CASAC). He is now an associate professor in public law at UCT, a Fellow of the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and a co-founding partner of political risk advisory The Paternoster Group. Earlier publications include Thabo Mbeki’s World, Anatomy of South Africa, The Zuma Years and Make or Break.

Mabel Sithole is the Building Bridges Programme Officer at the Nelson Mandela School. She has over thirteen years’ experience working in human rights, public policy and development in Africa. She worked with the International Committee of the Red Cross as the Communications Officer for the Regional Delegation of Southern Africa, and Skillshare International as the Regional Programme Officer for Southern Africa. She has contributed to studies assessing the implementation of affirmative action and employment equity policies in South Africa’s tertiary education sector. Her current research interests focus on leadership and governance in southern Africa. She is also an established musician (Mae Sithole), recipient of the ConcertsSA Mobility Fund, and was named one of Cape Town’s Top 5 Innovative Female Musician Innovators by Of Africa magazine.