Speaker Profiles IRC Annual Conference 2023
(in order of appearance)
Leigh Roberts
Leigh is the CEO of the Integrated Reporting Committee (IRC) of South Africa and is the Chair of its technical Working Group. She has been deeply involved in integrated reporting in South Africa and internationally. As a member of the Technical Task Force of the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), she worked on the development of the Integrated Reporting Framework (International
Loshni Naidoo
Loshni is the Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). She joined the JSE on 28 August 2023 and brings 18 years of climate change, sustainability services and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG). Loshni’s role as CSO will focus on the JSE’s own sustainability efforts, and reinforcing the bourse’s ongoing ambitions towards transformation, improved regulation and building a more sustainable future. Her responsibilities for Sustainability at the JSE include products, services, strategy, and board reporting. She also represents the JSE on various industry advisory panels related to sustainability, responsible investing and climate change internationally. Sustainability has always been at the core of her work across decades of multi-sectoral experience, from her start as a process engineer to her more recent consultative positions. Loshni holds a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering, a Bachelor of Commerce in Informatics, an MBA, and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Future Studies.
Professor Mervyn King
Mervyn is the Chair of the IRC of South Africa, Chair of the Africa Integrated Reporting Council, Chair Emeritus of the King Committee on Corporate Governance in South Africa, and Chair Emeritus of the GRI. He was Co-Chair Emeritus of the Value Reporting Foundation and Chair of the International Integrated Reporting Council. He is a member of the Private Sector Advisory Group to the World Bank on Corporate Governance and Patron of The Good Governance Academy. Mervyn is a Senior Counsel and former Judge of the Supreme Court of South Africa. He is professor extraordinaire at the University of South Africa on Corporate Citizenship, honorary professor at the Universities of Pretoria and Cape Town, a visiting professor at Rhodes, and a professor at the Wits Business School at the University of the Witwatersrand. He has received honorary doctorates from several universities around the world. Mervyn has received lifetime achievement awards for promoting quality corporate governance globally from the ICGN and other organisations, as well as several honorary fellowships and international awards. He chaired the UN Committee of Eminent persons on Governance and Oversight and was President of the Advertising Standards Authority for 15 years and a member of the ICC Court of Arbitration in Paris for seven years. He has been the chair, director, and chief executive of several listed companies. He has consulted, advised, and spoken on legal, business, advertising, sustainability and corporate governance issues in over 60 countries. He sits as an arbitrator and mediator internationally. He is the author of seven books on governance, sustainability and reporting.
Professor Suresh Kana
Suresh serves as a Trustee of the International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation and is Vice-chair of its Integrated Reporting and Connectivity Council. He is the Deputy-chair of the IRC of South Africa and past Chair of the King Committee on Corporate Governance. He serves as chair and non-executive director on several listed company boards. He is a Trustee of The Constitutional Court Trust. Suresh was the CEO of PwC Africa, Chair of SAICA, Deputy-chair of IRBA, board member of the IAASB of IFAC, Chair of the South African standard-setter, the Financial Reporting Standards Council, and Chair of the Independent Oversight Advisory Committee of the United Nations World Food Programme.
Dr Ndidi Nnoli-Edozien
Ndidi was appointed as a full-time member of the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) in June 2022, effective 15 July 2022. Her career has been focused on building connections between business and sustainable development, working across multinational and indigenous companies, public institutions and civil society organisations – in Africa and Europe – to initiate sustainable development initiatives. She served as the inaugural Group Chief Sustainability and Governance Officer of Dangote Industries Limited – one of Africa’s largest manufacturing businesses – from 2017 to 2020. In this role, she was responsible for developing the company’s sustainability culture, strategy and reporting across 14 countries. Dr Nnoli-Edozien has also served on several boards, committees and initiatives focused on corporate culture, impact investing, sustainability reporting and governance. She has a PhD in social ethics, cultural adaptation, sustainability and governance from the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Germany and a Bachelor’s degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK.
Peter Paul van de Wijs
Peter Paul is currently the Chief Policy Officer of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and is responsible for driving the adoption of the GRI Standards into rules and regulations set by (national) policy makers and capital markets around the world. Peter Paul has over 20 years of professional experience in public policy, communications and sustainability. In addition to leading his own business, Peter Paul has held executive positions at the LEGO Foundation and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). Earlier in his career, Peter Paul has held various international positions in communications, sustainable development, government affairs and issues management at The Dow Chemical Company, including leadership of Dow’s Global Water Strategy Team. He holds a degree in Communications from the College for Economic and Business Administration Studies in Eindhoven, the Netherlands.
Jayne Mammatt
Jayne is a Chartered Accountant by profession and became involved in the broad areas of corporate governance, sustainable development, and climate change in 2002. Her areas of expertise include: Sustainable development strategy, framework, practices, reporting and assurance; Sustainable Development Goals; integrated reporting and management; social and environment impact and outcomes measurement; safety, health and environment risk, performance, and compliance; and climate change risk and resilience. She works across a variety of industries including mining, oil and gas, banking, insurance, telecommunications, technology, construction, real estate, and state-owned entities and has written various articles for publication in the press, presented at numerous conferences, co-authored The Company Director’s Handbook, and contributed a chapter to SAICA’s Green II. She was a member of the Institute of Directors Sustainable Development Forum, the IRC of SA Board, the NBI’s Advisory Committee on Environment and Sustainability and the King sub-committee on climate change. Currently she is a member of the IRC of SA Working Group.
Johan Thyse
Johan is the Vice President: Sustainability & Reporting at Sasol. His qualifications include the BA Law, LLB degrees obtained from the University of Western Cape; MAP from Wits Business School and a Master in Laws: Climate Change Law and Policy awarded with distinction from the University of Strathclyde in Scotland. He is a qualified attorney and joined Sasol in 1996 and occupied and led several portfolios which includes leading the Strategic Planning team at Sasol Oil. In 2008, as part of Sasol Synfuels International, he was expatriated to Beijing, China for 3,5 years followed by an 18-month assignment in Calgary, Canada. He returned to South Africa in late 2012 taking up a role which included leading an inter-disciplinary team focused on climate change policy and was responsible for Sasol’s regulatory response. He moved to his current role in 2020.
Ronell Govender
Ronell has worked in many roles including audit, ethics, governance and now driving sustainability strategies within the E,S and G pillars across the Naspers group. She is passionate about promoting sustainability best practices, with a deep sense of responsibility towards co-creating operational processes to execute sustainable action. Her analytical knowledge on reporting practices enables non-financial disclosures aligned with essential areas of the value creation within the organization.
Stephen Bullock
Stephen Bullock is employed as Anglo American Platinum’s head of sustainability, a position he has held since August 2021. Prior to this Stephen has held the positions of technical assistant in the CEO’s office, acting executive head corporate affairs, head of sustainability and before that was the Regional Environmental Manager at Anglo American Platinum’s Rustenburg operations. After graduating with a BSc Honours degree in environmental geochemistry from the University of Natal, Stephen joined the mining industry where he has worked for the past 30 years in the sustainable development, environmental management and geological fields. During these years he has worked on tin, gold, coal and most recently platinum mines and is a registered professional natural scientist. He has also completed a Masters degree in sustainable development at Stellenbosch university.
Jonathan Labrey
Jonathan is Chief Connectivity and Integrated Reporting Officer at the IFRS Foundation, leading the team responsible for the technical development and market adoption of the Integrated Reporting Framework and Integrated Thinking Principles. He has over 17 years of experience working in public policy, corporate governance and regulation in the accountancy and corporate reporting fields. Jonathan was responsible for global policy and strategy at the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) from 2012- 2021 and the Value Reporting Foundation from 2021-2022. During this time, he developed a particular expertise in Asian markets, having worked across the region while living in Singapore. He has developed a deep understanding of capital market and corporate governance issues, working closely with businesses, investors, regulators and accountancy professional bodies. Jonathan led the public affairs and policy team at the ICAEW from 2004-10. From 2010-2012 he was head of communications at the UK’s Financial Reporting Council. He graduated in Law from King’s College London and started his career in the UK Parliament as an advisor to several Members of Parliament.
Anelisa Keke
Widely regarded as the go-to source as a remuneration practitioner, a keynote speaker and editor, Anelisa is the Chief sustainability officer at Redefine Properties. Before joining Redefine, Anelisa was a senior manager in the Reward Practice of a leading professional services firm, specialising in tax, legal and governance matters. She holds an LLB qualification from the University of Cape Town. In her current role, Anelisa is responsible for further evolving Redefine’s ESG strategy to achieve the application of best practice ESG principles in the management of Redefine’s real estate assets.
Nadia Schoeman
A Chartered Accountant with a passion to provide holistic integrated and sustainability reports that depicts the strategy, performance (both financial and operational), sustainability and governance of the business. Nadia has been managing and refining the Integrated reporting process at Kumba Iron Ore Limited since April 2015 and later also took charge of the sustainability reporting. Kumba’s aim is to produce world class integrated reports that will inform the investment community about Kumba’s ability to create value over the short, medium and long term, by providing relevant and balanced information on our business model, operating context, material risks and opportunities, governance and operational performance. We continue to enhance and innovate how we present information in the Integrated report to ensure a frank reflection on how Kumba creates, preserves or erodes value over time.
Zanele Salman
Zanele is an experienced investor relations, business development and marketing executive with over 20 years’ experience working for some of the JSE’s top 40 listed corporations where she has led projects and business initiatives extending the various elements of the value chain. She has spent half of her career in business development and marketing and sales environments where she has set the agenda and led the implementation of projects, programs and initiatives. In investor relations, she’s successfully built teams and enabled the delivery of strong and comprehensive strategy and growth narratives focused on enhanced disclosure. She is passionate about assisting businesses find, evaluate and implement solutions to enable competitive sustainable growth. As an advisor to companies and associations she utilises her experience gained from successes she’s had managing businesses as well overseeing various functions and projects. Zanele is a Communications Director, Career Advisor and Coordinator for Science Studies for Bergville Community Builders, an organisation started in 2003 by like-minded professionals. The organisation targets 32 high schools in Bergville, KZN. It’s aimed at guiding high school learners and improving their exposure to tertiary/career information and programmes.
Bruce Thomas
Bruce is a finance executive at Nedbank where he is responsible for leading external reporting, including the coordination of Nedbank’s Integrated Report and the suite of supporting reports. In addition, he manages Nedbank’s external audit engagement and the reporting into the Nedbank Group Exco and Nedbank Group Audit Committee. Bruce is the current chair of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountant’s (SAICA) Banking Project Group, which is an industry forum that brings together banks, auditors, the Prudential Authority of the South African Reserve Bank (SARB), the Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors (IRBA), and the Banking Association of South Africa (BASA) to discuss and debate reporting, modelling and assurance matters relevant to banks in South Africa. Bruce is a member of the Institute of International Finance’s (IIF) senior accounting group. Prior to joining Nedbank, Bruce was at PwC where he provided accounting consulting services to South Africa’s largest financial services groups and their audit teams.
Professor Yvette Lange
Yvette is an Adjunct Professor within the School of Accountancy (Wits University, Johannesburg) and is the co-ordinator and director of the School’s Chief Value Officer (CVO) programme. Yvette is also currently a technical consultant for A4S in the areas of Knowledge and Technical as well as Education and Learning. Prior to this, Yvette was in professional practice for several years as a Director within the Governance, Risk and Internal Audit team at PwC, joining from PwC’s Sustainability and Integrated Reporting team. In 2018, she was seconded to the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) as a Technical Specialist and is a current Working Group member on the IRC of SA where she also oversees research projects. Yvette’s expertise and experience includes assurance and analysis (internal and external audit), risk management and controls, integrated reporting and thinking, sustainability aspects and non- financial assurance and advisory. Yvette serves on several local and global committees in the areas of integrated and sustainability reporting and related matters. She is a technical advisor to the IAASB (International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board), chair of SAICA’s Sustainability Technical Committee (South Africa Institute of Chartered Accountants), a member and past chair of the IRBA’s Sustainability Standing Committee (Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors. Yvette also serves as a judge on the Chartered Governance Institute of Southern Africa’s (CGISA) integrated reporting awards. MPhil Business Management (Responsible Leadership), CA(SA), CIA, CCSA.
Fikile Zwane
Fikile is a director in General Assurance at SNG Grant Thornton with more than 25 years as an auditor. Her experience includes providing assurance of both financial and non-financial assurance assignments. She has previously worked as an internal auditor, finance manager and an IFRS Advisor. As a provider of assurance services, she had to assure financial statements compiled per the IFRS framework; and the sustainability information and KPIs included in Integrated Reports and ESG reports and annual reports, with the sustainability information compiled per the various sustainability frameworks, like the GRI Standards and the Carbon Disclosure Project CDP guidelines. As part of some of the assignments she has advised clients of whether or not their integrated reports were complying the Integrated Reporting Framework, King IV, GRI and International Financial Reporting Standards. She has also contributed in commenting of the IFRS Foundation Sustainability Standards.
Oswald Wentworth
Oswald is a Partner at PwC South Africa, leading the Sustainability and Climate Change business focusing on sustainability assurance and also leading the Energy, Utilities and Mining Quality and Risk Management Function. Oswald has more than 25 years assurance experience, 18 years as Partner. He is an accredited JSE, Canadian and PCAOB/SEC assurance partner and has in-depth experience in IFRS, International Auditing Standards, US/PCAOB Auditing Standards and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Oswald is providing sustainability assurance services to various JSE, PCAOB and SEC clients and is passionate about the ever- evolving assurance and sustainability landscape.
Shaheed Osman
Shaheed is a partner at KPMG and serves as the KPMG Southern Africa ESG assurance lead focusing on the reporting implications of ESG-related matters and the assurance thereof. Shaheed is the engagement partner or quality reviewer on a number of listed ESG assurance engagements. He is responsible for the overall client interaction and management of multi-disciplinary teams providing readiness reviews, limited assurance and reasonable assurance across various industries. Shaheed has established an ESG technical team to understand and disseminate ESG reporting and assurance developments. Shaheed has a strong external audit background and his clients have included KPMG priority clients. Shaheed is a member of the IRC of SA Working Group, the IRBA Sustainability Standing Committee, and a member of various KPMG ESG regional leadership groups and topic teams.