Plenary Speakers
Ambassador James A. Joseph
Ambassador James A. Joseph is President Emeritus of the Council on Foundations and Professor Emeritus at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. Before joining the faculty of the Sanford School in 2000, he served in senior executive or advisory positions for four U.S. Presidents, including Under Secretary of the Interior for President Jimmy Carter and U.S. Ambassador to South Africa for President William Clinton. He was also the founding chair of the Corporation for National and Community Service where he helped establish AmeriCorps, and chair of the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation established by Governor Blanco in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
In 1999, the Republic of South Africa awarded Joseph the Order of Good Hope, at that time the highest honor bestowed on a citizen of another country, and in 2008 he was inducted into the Louisiana Political Hall of Fame. Ambassador Joseph serves currently as an Honorary Professor and a member of the Board of Advisors of the Graduate School of Business at the University of Cape Town. He has also taught at Yale Divinity School and the Claremont Colleges where he was university chaplain. In 1985, he was a Fellow at Nuffield College at Oxford University. He has nineteen honorary degrees.
At Duke, Ambassador Joseph was also Leader in-Residence for the Hart Leadership Program and founder of the United States – Southern Africa Center for Leadership and Public Values as a partnership between Duke and the University of Cape Town. In 1963, he was founding co-chair of the local civil rights movement that led the fight for civil rights in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. A frequent speaker to academic, civic and religious audiences, he is the author of four books, most recently Saved for a Purpose: A Journey from Private Virtues to Public Values published in 2015 by the Duke University Press. His undergraduate alma mater, Southern University, has named an endowed chair in his honor and the Association of Black Foundation Executives established the annual James A. Joseph Lecture on Philanthropy.
In 1979, Joseph was named by Ebony magazine as “One of the 100 Most Influential Black Americans” and later by Fortune magazine as one of “America’s Best Nonprofit Managers.” In 2014, he received the Lux et Veritas award that honors a distinguished graduate of Yale Divinity School. He has served as chair of the Children’s Defense Fund and as a member of the board of directors of the Brookings Institution, the National Endowment for Democracy, the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Pitzer College and City Year South Africa. He is a member of the board of advisors of the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University and the Andrew Young Leadership and Policy Center at Morehouse College. Ambassador Joseph is married to the former Mary Braxton, an Emmy Award winning television journalist. He has two children and two grandchildren.
Sibongile Mkhabela, Nelson Mandela Children's Fund / Nelson Mandela Children's Hospital Trust
Sibongile (Bongi) Mkhabela, a social worker by profession and an activist by orientation is the current Chief Executive Officer of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund (NMCF) as well as the Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital Trust.
Appointed as CEO of NMCF in 2001, not only has she been instrumental in growing the Fund’s endowment but also in captaining the navigation of its strategic direction. Her tenure as CEO has seen the organisation position itself as a critical player in issues affecting children, their families and communities. The Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund footprint has extended beyond the borders of South Africa to encompass Southern Africa.
In 2009, the Fund’s Board of Trustees seconded Mkhabela to assume the role of CEO of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital Trust. Chaired by Graça Machel, the Trust is tasked with the vision of pioneering the establishment of a second dedicated children’s hospital in Southern Africa. The hospital will be a concrete expression of Mr Mandela’s legacy. It aims to improve the quality of paediatric care, research and training in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Mkhabela is also a Joel L. Fleishman Civil Society Fellow at Duke University in North Carolina, USA, and completed her post-graduate Business Management studies with the University of the Witwatersrand Business School in Johannesburg. Her work in senior positions at the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Education Programme in Southern Africa, and the South African Council of Churches has added to her wealth of experience on development issues.
Part of that experience saw her serve in the office of then-Deputy President Thabo Mbeki as Programmes Director responsible for programming with specific reference to civil society-government partnerships, as well as ensuring that South Africa implemented United Nations Agreements on the Rights of the Child. The roots of her activism trace back to her student days. She served on executive councils of the student organisations behind the nationwide June 16, 1976 uprisings credited for the beginning of the end of apartheid. Her personal story of the Soweto uprisings is captured in her book, Open Earth and Black Roses.
She serves, among others, on the boards of TrustAfrica, based in Senegal; Global Fund for Community Foundations; Global Philanthropy Alliance; and the Black Sash.
Gerry Salole, European Foundation Centre
Gerry Salole is the Chief Executive of the European Foundation Centre (EFC) since 2005. The EFC is an association of over 200 public-benefit foundations and corporate funders active in philanthropy in Europe and elsewhere.
His previous posts have included serving as Representative at the Ford Foundation’s Southern Africa office, based in Johannesburg, and director of the Department of Programme Documentation and Communication of the Bernard van Leer Foundation, based in The Hague. He has also worked for Save the Children Federation (USA) in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, and Redd Barna (Norwegian Save the Children) and OXFAM UK and UNHCR in Ethiopia.
Gerry Salole studied Social Anthropology and African History at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He holds an M.A. (Econ.) and Ph.D. from the University of Manchester.
He is Chair of the Global Fund for Community Foundations (Johannesburg) sits on the Education Advisory Board of the Open Society Foundations (New York) on the Strategic Advisory Committee of the European Venture Philanthropy Association (Brussels), he is a Board Member of Assifero, the Italian Association of Grant Making Foundations (Milan) and he is the Founding Chair of TrustAfrica (Dakar).
