Leigh Roberts
Leigh is the CEO of the 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, she worked on the development of the Integrated Reporting Framework (International <IR> Framework) released in 2013, and as a member of the Framework Board she looked at its update and revision, released in 2021. She is a member of the Integrated Reporting and Connectivity Council. Leigh has co-authored two books with Professor Mervyn King: Integrate: Doing Business in the 21st Century (Juta) and The Healthy Company (Juta 2021). She regularly runs board and executive training workshops in South Africa and internationally. She is a specialist trainer for the IoDSA and the JSE Ltd. She has previously adjudicated for the CGISA IR Awards in the Top 40 Listed Companies category, and has contributed to numerous publications internationally. Leigh is one of the founders of the IRC of South Africa.
Professor Mervyn King
Mervyn is the Chair of the IRC of South Africa, Chair of the African 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 is the Chair of the Independent Oversight Advisory Committee of the UN World Food Programme and 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, and Chair of the South African standard-setter, the Financial Reporting Standards Council.
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 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.
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. Since then, she has worked across a variety of industries including mining, oil and gas, banking, insurance, telecommunications, technology, construction, real estate, and state-owned entities. Jayne focuses on developing and delivering services in the areas of 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. Jayne has written various thought leadership 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 South Africa Board, and the NBI’s Advisory Committee on Environment and Sustainability. She is a member of the IRC Working Group and the King sub-committee on climate change.
Ansie Ramalho
Ansie is the Chair of the King Committee on Corporate Governance for South Africa. She serves as a professional non-executive director and has been conferred the Chartered Director (SA) designation by the Institute of Directors South Africa. Ansie is currently the Chair of the South African National Blood Service NPC and the Lead Independent Director of KPMG South Africa. She is also a member of the Financial Reporting Standards Council. Ansie regularly facilitates training and provides consulting services on corporate governance and company law.
Neil Stewart
Neil is the New York-based Director of Corporate Outreach for the IFRS Foundation, which houses the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), the newly created International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), the SASB Standards and the Integrated Reporting Framework. Neil joined SASB in 2020, bringing more than 25 years of experience in and around investor relations and corporate governance. Previously at Citigroup as VP IR Advisory on the ADR team, helping non-US issuers develop IR and ESG strategies, Neil is a board member of NIRI NY, the New York chapter of the National Investor Relations Institute.
Jan Müller
Jan joined KPMG in Frankfurt, Germany in 2012 and supported the statutory audits of various banking audit clients prior to joining the global KPMG Centre of Excellence on IFRS in London, UK as a financial instrument specialist. With the initiative of the IFRS Foundation to expand in the area of sustainability reporting, Jan started to focus mainly on sustainability matters. In 2021 he moved to the KPMG Centre of Excellence in EMA (Europe, Middle East, Africa), taking responsibility to set up technical capacity on sustainability reporting initiatives in the region, mainly on EU initiatives such as the EU Taxonomy and the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS). Jan is a Wirtschaftsprüfer (German certified public auditor) and Steuerberater (German certified tax advisor). He holds a Master of Science from Mannheim Business School.
Shameela Soobramoney
As Chief Sustainability Officer of the JSE Ltd, Shameela is responsible for advising the Executive Committee and Board on sustainability and the integration into strategy. She is past chair of the World Federation of Exchange’s Sustainability Working Group, a member of the Strategy Group of the Global Investors for Sustainable Development Alliance, and Chair of the Sustainable Finance Working Group of National Treasury. She leads the JSE’s work into climate change, the potential for a local market to trade in carbon credits and environment-related products, the development of a Green, Social and Sustainability bonds framework, impact investing, the JSE’s sustainability, innovation and CSI strategies, as well as the annual sustainability investor briefing/showcase sessions. She project-led the JSE’s Sustainability and Climate Change Disclosure Guidance which won the 2022 award for Thought Leadership in Sustainable Investing: Africa (Environmental Finance). She holds various non-executive director positions and has held senior roles in banking and insurance. She is the winner of the SERAS Africa CSR/Sustainability Professional 2021 and IRMSA ESG Sustainability Professional 2020 awards.
Nola Richards
Nola is the Executive Head: ESG & Sustainable Business for Vodacom Group and is responsible for leading the execution of ESG across the Vodacom footprint. This encompasses the Group’s purpose ambition, social contract, responsible business practices and transparency programme. The latter covering a range of sustainability disclosures, ESG surveys such as CDP, external ESG ratings assessments and investor interactions. She is liaison to Vodacom leadership, inclusive of the Group Executive ESG and Reputation Committee and Board Social and Ethics Committee on ESG-related matters and represents Vodacom ESG with majority shareholder, Vodafone. Her sustainability experience spans frameworks including the GRI, the UN Global Compact, Task Force on Climate-related Disclosures, UN Sustainable Development Goals, UNEP Finance Initiative and Integrated Reporting amongst others. She held various positions at Barclays Africa and Absa Group garnering experience across multiple disciplines including sustainable finance, ESG and integrated reporting, governance, finance, investor relations, corporate responsibility, corporate communications, stakeholder engagement, and corporate social investment and foundation management.
Professor Guler Aras
Guler is an academic, a civil society leader and a researcher who leads key studies on finance, corporate governance, corporate sustainability. She is a professor of Finance and Accounting at Yildiz Technical University in Istanbul, where she served as the Dean of the Faculty of Business and also Dean of the Graduate School for many years. She spent a year as a visiting professor at Georgetown University Washington DC. She has founded the Center for Finance, Governance and Sustainability and she also started the ground-breaking initiative on Integrated Reporting Association Turkey (ERTA), where she is still founding chair. She is the author of more than 25 international books and contributed to more than 300 articles in international journals and conferences and carried out numerous granted international project. She is the founding Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Capital Market Studies, and Editor of Routledge’s Finance, Governance and Sustainability Book Series. Guler writes a newspaper column that focuses on the education of the next generation of academics and business leaders who could promote sustainable solutions for societal and corporate challenges. She was awarded as one of the most inspirational women in Turkey for 2020. Guler also serves as an independent board member in business and Turkish Capital Markets Association.
Vania Borgerth
Vania represents the Brazilian Institute for Corporate Governance at the Integrated Reporting and Connectivity Council and is a member of the Expert Panel of Accounting for Sustainability (A4S). Vania is the Head of CBARI, the Brazilian Network for Integrated Reporting, a Commissioner at CBPS (Brazilian Committee for Sustainability Pronouncements) and an Audit Committee Member at Banco Santander Brasil. She is a board and audit committee member at SHIFT Project, a board member at International Ethics Standards Board for Accounting, a member of UNCTAD’s ISAR International Standards for Accounting and Reporting, and a former executive at BNDES (The Brazilian Development Bank).
Patrick Kabuya
Patrick, a Chartered Accountant, and a Senior Governance Specialist at the World Bank, is the Africa Integrated Reporting Council (AIRC) convenor. He was instrumental in establishing the AIRC, a partnership between the World Bank and the Pan African Federation of Accountants that promotes and supports the implementation of integrated thinking, sustainability reporting and integrated reporting in Africa. Patrick represents AIRC at the IFRS Foundation’s Integrated Reporting and Connectivity Council. Patrick is a leader in governance issues, ranging from public financial management, corporate governance, integrated thinking, sustainability reporting, integrated reporting, and strengthening the accountancy profession.
Michael Bray
Michael is a special adviser at the IFRS Foundation for Connectivity and Reporting. Prior to his role at the IFRS Foundation, Michael was special advisor to the CEO of the International Integrated Reporting Council and Value Reporting Foundation. He served as a director of the International integrated Reporting Council, Partner from 2017 to 2020 and continues to serve as a Director on the Australian Business Reporting Leaders Forum. In 2010, Michael lead the KPMG Better Business Reporting division. He started his career at KPMG in 1989.
Erik Breen
Erik is the Managing Director of Infinsus with the ambition to (re) connect the power of (institutional) capital with non-financial value drivers through a realistic business-driven approach. He has over 25 years’ experience in asset management, especially in integrating finance and sustainability. He held various positions with Robeco, Triodos Investment Management, and auxiliary functions with Eumedion, ICGN and Integrated Reporting. He has been at the forefront of global developments in corporate governance, responsible investment, stewardship and sustainability and impact investing. He has international experience as board member in developing and challenging strategy, in promoting effective risk oversight and in fostering open board cultures. In 2019, he founded Infinsus, which is his own consultancy firm dedicated to integrating finance and sustainability in financial services and corporates. Erik chaired the Framework Board of the Value Reporting Foundation and the International Integrated Reporting Council.
Zanele Salman
Zanele is an experienced investor relations and business development executive with over 21 years’ experience, currently running Isibani-ci, a business development, investor relations and strategic communications firm. She has worked for some of the JSE’s top 40 listed corporations where she led projects and business initiatives extending various elements of the value chain – research and development, operations optimisation, strategy, investor relations, business development, marketing and sales, as well as value creation. She believes that a comprehensive understanding of the operating environment, clarity in strategic objectives and execution plans combined with agility is key in delivering improved and sustainable performance. She is passionate about South Africa’s manufacturing industry, in particular assisting the industry to find, evaluate and implement solutions to enable competitive sustainable growth. She is a member of the IRC Working Group. Her qualifications include a BSc Chemistry (Hons), Dipl Marketing Management and an MBA from UCT.