Participants 2021
Adam Cruise
Adam Cruise is an investigative environmental journalist, travel writer and academic. He has contributed to number of international publications including National Geographic and The Guardian. His books include King Solomon and the Showman, Louis Botha’s War and In the Pursuit of Solitude.
Angelo Agrizzi
Angelo Agrizzi is the ex-COO of Bosasa. In 2016 he became South Africa’s biggest whistleblower when he resigned from the company headed up by his infamous boss, Gavin Watson. Agrizzi has submitted substantial testimony to the Zondo Commission on State Capture. In 2020 his bestselling corruption memoir Inside the Belly of the Beast was published by Truth be Told Publishing.
Angela Makholwa
Angela Makholwa is the much-loved author of gripping psychological thrillers. Her novels – Red Ink, The 30th Candle, Black Widow Society, and the internationally acclaimed The Blessed Girl – are filled with entertaining escapades and the sexual misadventures of modern women
Bridget Krone
Bridget Krone lives with her husband in Hilton KwaZulu-Natal. Their house is on the edge of a farm and a nature reserve and she can see cows on the hill from her writing desk and the Drakensberg mountains from her stoep. She was an English teacher for a few years and then started writing English text books for South African schools. Small Mercies is her first novel for children. It has been named a Best Middle-Grade Book of 2020 by Kirkus Reviews and it made the Outstanding International Books List for 2021 (USBBY).
Carice Anderson
Carice holds an MBA from Harvard University and has worked with and for top companies such as Deloitte, Google, Allan Gray Orbis Foundation, Publicis Media and Bain & Company. At McKinsey & Company, Carice managed a leadership development programme for Black professionals as a Professional Development Manager. She currently does executive coaching, leadership development and diversity and inclusion facilitation for top firms as a Senior Principal for Korn Ferry, a global organisational strategy consulting firm. Carice has been living in South Africa since 2011 with her husband Fungayi and she enjoys traveling, massages (which she misses greatly because of Covid) and she is obsessed with mangoes, chocolate and laughter.
Prof Claudine Storbeck
Prof Claudine Storbeck has a PhD in Education Linguistics and has been working in the field of Deaf Education and Deaf Studies for over 27 years. She was honoured to be the South African Sign Language (SASL) interpreter for the inaugurations of both Presidents Mandela and Mbeki. Claudine has over 150 academic presentations and publications in almost 20 countries and has recently starting publishing children’s literature. She was named a world specialist in Deaf Education by the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) and is the Director and Associate Professor of the Centre for Deaf Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand. She co-wrote Mpumi and Jabu’s Magical Day with Lebohang Masingo.
Christopher Lloyd
Dale Hefer
Hustling, happiness and a Blow Up Doll named Percy
Dale started through-the-line advertising agency Chillibush from a suburban garage in 1998. The agency was ranked a top three South African agency by Finweek and the Financial Mail. Dale sold Chillibush in 2014 at which time it was billing more than R100m per year. During her time running the agency Dale was a finalist in the Ernst and Young Global Emerging Entrepreneur awards (she was runner up to Koos Bekker) as well as in South Africa’s Most Empowered Females in Government and Business Awards. Dale was Businesswoman of the Year in 2010. She lives in Johannesburg with her two children.
Elizabeth Nyamayaro
Elizabeth Nyamayaro is an award-winning humanitarian and former United Nations Senior Advisor on Gender Equality. Born in Zimbabwe, Elizabeth has worked at the forefront of global development for over two decades improving the lives of under-served populations and has been instrumental in fighting global inequalities, advancing social justice, and challenging the status quo to accelerate women’s rights around the world – through her leadership roles at the World Bank, World Health Organization, UNAIDS, and UN Women.
Elizabeth is the mastermind behind HeForShe, a United Nations global solidarity movement for gender equality that took the world by storm, generating more than 1.2 BILLION conversations on social media and galvanizing men in every single country in the world in just five days. With her TED Talk garnering more than 1 MILLION views in its first weeks alone, Elizabeth is a prominent thought-leader and has engaged at global forums such as World Economic Forum in Davos, Cannes Film Festival, Skoll World Forum, Harvard, Oxford, the British Parliament, among others.
Named as Apolitico’s 100 Most Influential People in Gender Policy 2018 & 2019, Elizabeth has been touted by The New York Times as “one of only two women transforming Davos”, and has been featured in Vogue, Fast Company, Wired, Fortune, Elle, BBC and CNN. She has also served as a Glass Lions jury at Cannes Lions, and has received the PR Council Trailblazer Award for Social Impact and the Feminist Majority Foundation’s Global Women’s Rights Award.
A Political Scientist by training, Elizabeth holds a Masters of Science in Politics from the London School of Economics & Political Science and leadership education from the Harvard Business School.
Emily Briggeman
Dr Emmanuel Taban
When the 17-year-old EMMANUEL TABAN arrived in Johannesburg from war-torn South Sudan with nothing, he had only five years of education behind him.
Today this former Medunsa student is a highly qualified pulmonologist, with a European Diploma in adult respiratory medicine. During 2020, he was at the forefront of the treatment of Covid-19 patients in ICU.
Dr Taban was the first pulmonologist in the world to perform a therapeutic bronchoscopy on a hypoxemic Covid-19 patient, discovering that some deaths from Covid-19 pneumonia are due to fibrinous mucus plugs.
Emily House
Originally hailing from England, children’s book author Emily House is now based in Somerset West, South Africa. Emily works as a freelance illustrator and children’s book author, with a passion for creation in all mediums. Driven by copious amounts of tea and the odd slice of cake, Emily’s debut children’s book was Earth Takes a Break in 2020, with Bonbon & Blanket following in May 2021. She has several exciting works in progress that readers can expect in the years to come.
Eva Mazza
Over the last three years, Eva Mazza has become one of South Africa’s most popular novelists with a string of hits behind her name, including her multiple bestseller Sex, Lies & Stellenbosch. In 2020 Sex, Lies Declassified also achieved bestseller status. Her latest novel Christine promises to do the same. Eva is a Stellenbosch resident, a wife to delicious Dom and a mother of four feisty daughters.
Gail Schimmel
Gail Schimmel is an admitted attorney and currently works as the CEO of the Advertising Regulatory Board. She lives in Johannesburg with her family. Two Months is her fifth novel, following on from The Accident (2019), The Park (2017), Whatever Happened to the Cowley Twins? (2013) and Marriage Vows (2008).
Garth Japhet
Garth Japhet is a medical doctor who co-founded Soul City, an internationally acclaimed multimedia edutainment project that addresses health issues and, since 1992, has reached over 50 million people in ten southern African countries. He is also the founding CEO of Heartlines, an NGO that initiates research-based campaigns that use story to tackle society’s big issues. His most recent project is www.forgood.co.za, which connects volunteers to opportunities. Garth is a Schwab fellow of the World Economic Forum (WEF), a fellow of the African Leadership Initiative and a senior Ashoka fellow. He has received the global Everett Rogers Award for his contribution to Entertainment Education. Like Water is for Fish is his first book.
Jaco Jacobs
Jaco Jacobs is one of the most popular and prolific children’s book authors in South Africa. He has published more than 190 books, together selling over a million copies. Two of his books have been adapted into full-length feature films, and his work has been translated into English, Dutch and Italian. Jaco lives in Bloemfontein with his wife and two daughters, as well as two and a half dogs, a cat and a pet python. When he’s not writing or translating books, he enjoys running, reading and listening to very loud music.
Jacqui Wilmot
Jennifer Platt
Dr Judy Dlamini
As a four-year-old Judy wanted to be a medical doctor, as a teenager she wanted to be an academic doctor. When both were achieved, after numerous failures, new dreams were born, including being an author. You should never stop dreaming, backed with hard work!
Judy is the Founder and Chairman of Mbekani Group, Chancellor of Wits University, co-founder and trustee of Mkhiwa Trust, a Public Benefit Organisation (PBO) that the family uses for social upliftment, author of Equal but Different and The Other Story. She is the recipient numerous awards, including EY World Entrepreneur (Southern Africa), Lifetime Achiever award 2019.
Johan Marais
Johan Marais is one of Africa’s leading reptile experts and photographers. He has contributed significantly to reptile conservation and authored many books and articles on
the subject. He is also the snake expert for the Tygerberg Poison Centre and the Red Cross Poison Centre, as well as advisor to various hospitals and clinics throughout Africa.
Karabo Kgoleng
She believes that engagement in social and cultural issues contributes significantly to the transformation of individuals and communities.
Karabo is a recipient of the South African Literary Award for Journalism and is a sought-after speaker on storytelling as central to public intellectual and cultural life. She has also adjudicated prestigious literary awards and worked on selection panels for short story anthologies. She has worked as Books Editor for City Press, talk show host at SAfm and 702, and at the Department of Arts and Culture as Deputy Director: Books and Publishing.
Kim Potgieter
Kim Potgieter is a Registered Financial Life Planner, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER®, Professional Certified Coach (PPC)TM with the International Coach Federation, Certified Dare to LeadTM Facilitator, and a New Money Story® mentor coach. Her first book Retiremeant: Get more meaning from your money was published in 2015. She lives in Johannesburg.
Lebohang Masango
Lebohang Masango is a PhD candidate with Master of Arts degree in Social Anthropology. She co-authored Grow to Be Great: Awesome African Achievers (Sifiso Publishers) with Dr Judy Dlamini and Mpumi and Jabu’s Magical Day (David Philip) with Professor Claudine Storbeck. She is the award-winning author of children’s book, Mpumi’s Magic Beads (David Philip). It is available in all South African languages and has been awarded the 2019 South African Literary Award for Children’s Literature and a 2020 gold Pendoring Advertising Award in the Publication Design – Whole Design category among others. Lebohang is also a Promax Award-winning poet.
Lindelwa Skenjana
Lindelwa Skenjana is an award-winning professional with over ten years’ experience in various sectors of the corporate world. She holds a master’s in ICTs for Development from the University of Manchester. Lindelwa is a founding member of Mbewu Movement, a young women’s dialogue forum. She lives in Johannesburg.
Lisa Linfield
Lisa Linfield has a goal to equip, engage and empower 1 Million Women to live a financially free life -so that they too may be able to live a life of purpose and choice.
In order to do this, she walked away from a 20-year corporate career to start her own wealth management business – believing that this was her purpose and her passion, and she had all she needed to succeed. How hard could it be?
And then the enormity of the change set in.
Leaving corporate illuminated so many thinking patterns that were keeping her stuck. As she worked with her clients to shift their financial positions, she realised they too struggled to change the thinking patterns that kept them financially stuck.
And so she did what she always does when confronted with a puzzle. She researched how to solve it.
The big frustration though was that all the books out there seemed to hold one piece of the puzzle. One helped you change habits. One spoke of achieving goals. One focussed on mindset. One was grounded in brain science. None brought all the pieces of the puzzle together.
So she wrote that book. Deep Grooves: Overcoming Patterns That Keep You Stuck is the one book you need to make changes to your life that lasts a lifetime.
Lisa Linfield is a personal finance expert, keynote speaker, course creator and host of her podcast Working Women’s Wealth. Lisa is a Board-Certified Financial Planner (CFP) and is CEO of a wealth and investment management business, Southern Pride Wealth. She has two honours degrees (one in Financial Planning) and has studied at Oxford, Insead and London Business School.
Lori-Ann Preston
Lori-Ann Preston is an award-winning children’s author who lives in East London. She won the Golden Baobab Prize in 2016 for her Early Chapter Book, The Ama-Zings! She holds a BEd Honours degree from the University of South Africa and is a former child’s educator of 20 years. Lori-Ann is an avid reader who is passionate about improving the literacy of children in South Africa. She has held over 100 free, educative literary workshops around the country, to motivate, encourage and inspire children to develop a love for reading. She is the author of the book series: Thabo, the Space Dude and Trixie, the Mischief-Maker.
Lynn Joffe
Born in London and raised on four continents, Lynn Joffe has written and produced a vast array of storytelling projects for radio, stage and TV. Lynn founded Creatrix, an integrated branded content agency, using storytelling techniques to create behaviour change. She has performed in a variety of self-penned cabarets and published a children’s picture book, The Tale of Stingray Charles. Lynn produced and presented a 13-part jazz series, Bejazzled, which flighted across Africa. Her short fiction has been published in Short Sharp Stories’ Instant Exposure, 36 Hours and Source magazine. Lynn graduated with an MA (cum laude) in Creative Writing at the University of the Witwatersrand School of Literature, Language and Media, in 2017. The Gospel According to Wanda B. Lazarus is her debut novel.
Mandy Wiener
Mandy Wiener lives and works in Johannesburg. She is one of South Africa’s best-known and most-credible journalists and authors. Wiener has worked as a multi-award-winning reporter since 2004. The Whistleblowers is her fifth book, following on from Ministry of Crime: An Underworld Explored (2018); Behind the Door: The Oscar Pistorius and Reeva Steenkamp Story (2014), with Barry Bateman; My Second Initiation: A Memoir (2013), with Vusi Pikoli, former head of the National Prosecuting Authority; and the groundbreaking Killing Kebble: An Underworld Exposed (2011).
Mark Heywood
Melinda Ferguson
Melinda Ferguson heads up the publishing imprint Melinda Ferguson Books, an imprint of NB Publishers which specialises in memoir and hard hitting non-fiction. In 2016 her title Rape A South African Nightmare by Professor Pumla Dineo Gqola won the highly coveted Sunday Times Alan Paton Award. Melinda is also the author of the bestselling addiction trilogy: Smacked, Hooked and Crashed. To date she has published over 60 titles.
Melusi Tshabalala
Melusi Tshabalala is a father, author, adman, entrepreneur, self-appointed educator and all-round outie yama outie. He runs the popular Melusi’s Everyday Zulu franchise, which includes a column in Finweek, a feature on Kaya FM and online isiZulu lessons – all drawn from his debut book Melusi’s Everyday Zulu. Magenge We Need to Talk has sparked important conversations across the nation.
Megan Furniss
Megan Furniss is a playwright, actor, writer and director. With a BA and a performer’s diploma in drama, she has worked in conventional theatre and is now director and creative force behind Improvision, an industrial theatre company that facilitates everything from corporate team building to empowerment and working on issues surrounding diversity, racism and conflict resolution. She’s received a Fleur du Cap award for Innovation in Theatre, a Fleur du Cap nomination for best supporting actress, and a Standard Bank Ovation Award from the Grahamstown National Arts Festival. She has written two self-published novels, and writes short stories for competitions.
Mosilo Mothepu
Mosilo Mothepu has sixteen years’ experience in the financial services industry. She worked on several key infrastructure projects, including raising capital for the Airports Company of South Africa in preparation for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. She is currently a special financial and economic advisor to a cabinet minister in the sixth democratic Parliament of South Africa.
Natasha Omokhodion-Kalulu Banda
Natasha is a Zambian who lives in Lusaka. She is also of Nigerian and Jamaican heritage. Her short stories have been featured in various pan-African publications, including ‘Short Story Day Africa 2018’ for Door of No Return, which has been translated into Portuguese for Brazilian Journal Periferias. Her first book No Be From Hia was selected as a Graywolf Africa Press finalist in 2019. It was acquired by South African publisher Black Bird Books after initial success in Zambia. In 2020, she participated in the inaugural online festival Afro Lit Sans Frontieres in which she interviewed amazing women authors such as Leila Aboulela, Ayobami Adebayo and Tsitsi Dangarembga. She is an alumni of Curtis Brown Creative’s inaugural Breakthrough Course for Black Writers.
Nic Haralambous
Nic Haralambous is an obsessive entrepreneur and motivational speaker. He has successfully started and sold multiple companies over 20 years. His speaking career spans almost a decade and includes events across the world including SXSW in Austin and the Rutberg Conference in London. His first book was Do. Fail. Learn. Repeat.
Refiloe Moahloli
Refiloe is the best-selling author of How Many Ways Can You Say Hello?, Tullula, Yes Yanga! Yheke Yanga! and We Are One; and founder of Twelve Animation Studios. As an aunt to many nieces and nephews who consider her ‘one of them’, they inspire a multitude of stories that are constantly swimming in her head, waiting to be penned and made alive.
Refiloe is based in Johannesburg; enjoys playing hockey, watching cricket and is passionate about writing and animating stories that bring out the best in the human spirit – stories where children can identify and celebrate themselves.
Rob Biddulph
When Covid hit in 2020, Rob posted a teaser video for a draw-along of his dinosaur character Gregosaurus from Happy Hatchday, and that was the start of Draw with Rob. There are now over 80 videos which have been watched over 4 million times on YouTube alone. In May 2020 Rob broke the Guinness World Record for the largest art lesson when over 45,000 families joined him to draw a blue whale.
Sally Partridge
Sally Partridge is a young adult novelist from Cape Town whose first novel, The Goblet Club, won the English category in the You/Huisgenoot I am a Writer competition. She has received the MER Prize for Youth Literature for four of her novels, and won a SALA Award for her novel, Mine. She has also been honoured by IBBY International for her young adult fiction.
Sam Beckbessinger
Sam Beckbessinger is the bestselling author of Manage Your Money Like a Fucking Grownup, sold in six countries. Her latest book, Manage Your Money Like a Grownup: Teen Edition is helping younger readers think about the basics of money, laying the foundation in financial education that most grownups today never had. She also writes weird horror stories and kids’ tv shows, and helps people learn to adult better (she’s still trying to figure it out herself).
Shubnum Khan
Shubnum Khan is a South African author and artist. Her first novel, Onion Tears, was shortlisted for the Penguin Prize for African Writing and the University of Johannesburg Debut Prize for Writing in English. She holds a Master’s degree in English and has been selected for a number of literary fellowships, including the Octavia Butler Fellow at Jack Jones Literary Arts and as a Mellon Fellow at Stellenbosch University. When not travelling, Shubnum lives in Durban writing and drawing for a living.
Soman Chainani
Soman Chainani’s debut series, The School for Good and Evil, has sold more than 3 million copies, been translated into 30 languages across six continents, and will be a major motion picture from Netflix in 2022. Each of the six books in the series have debuted on the New York Times Bestseller list. A graduate of Harvard University and Columbia University’s MFA Film Program, Soman began his career as a screenwriter and director. He has been nominated for the Waterstone Prize for Children’s Literature, been named to the Out100, and also received the two debut author grants.
Sue Nyathi
Sue Nyathi was born and raised in Bulawayo and lives in Johannesburg with her young son. Her first novel, The Polygamist, was published in 2012 and fans will be pleased to know she is currently writing a sequel. Her second novel, The GoldDiggers, was published by Pan Macmillan in 2018.
‘Sue Nyathi is a powerful literary force. A Family Affair exquisitely captures the complexities of family, culture and the societal constructs that surround women. Eloquent, evocative and utterly engrossing.’ – DESIREE-ANNE MARTIN, author of We Don’t Talk About It. Ever.
Professor Susan Booysen
Professor Susan Booysen is a political scientist, author and analyst of South African politics. She is also director of research at the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA), emeritus professor at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa and visiting professor at the Wits School of Governance.
Booysen’s third book in her Wits University Press trilogy of research-driven books on the African National Congress of South Africa, Precarious Power: Compliance and discontent under Ramaphosa’s ANC, was published in March 2021. The first two parts of the set were The African National Congress and the Regeneration of Political Power (2011) and Dominance and Decline: The ANC in the Time of Zuma (2015). Precarious Power is available from South African bookshops and digitally from online stores such as Amazon’s Kindle Store and Barnes & Noble.
Booysen has furthermore edited a range of books on South and Southern African politics. Her latest edited volume, for the Mapungubwe Institute, is Marriages of Inconvenience: Coalition politics in South Africa (July 2021). Her previous edited books are FeesMustFall: Student Revolt, Decolonisation and Governance in South Africa (WUP, 2016) and Local Elections in South Africa: People, parties, politics (SUN Press, 2012). She co-edited Democracy and Elections in Southern Africa (2009) with Denis Kadima.
Themba Maseko
Themba Maseko is the former CEO of the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) and government spokesperson.
After a brief term as Member of Parliament in 1994, Maseko was appointed as head of the Gauteng Department of Education before he became director general of the national Department of Public Works.
He holds a BA LLB from the University of the Witwatersrand where he was involved in student politics in the 1980s.
Maseko currently works as an independent communications consultant and part-time lecturer at the Wits School of Governance. He lives in Johannesburg.
Qaanitah Hunter
Qaanitah Hunter is an award-winning political journalist with Sunday Times. She won Vodacom Journalist of the year in 2016 and 2017 and recently won the Nat Nakasa Journalism Award (2019). She has done political analysis on SABC, eNCA, Talk Radio 702 and written for Daily Maverick and Mail and Guardian.
