Dr Mamphela Ramphele is Co-Founder of ReimagineSA, the Chair of the Tutu IP Trust and Co- President of the Club of Rome.  She is a change agent rooted in the Black Consciousness Philosophy that enabled many young people in the 1970s to self-liberate from the inferiority complex imposed by racist oppression and inspired the revival of the liberation struggle that ushered in political freedom in 1994.

She is a medical doctor (MBChB), a social anthropologist (PhD), an accomplished researcher and Co-author with Francis Wilson of Uprooting Poverty: The SA Challenge.  Research on the Psycho-social impacts of poverty and inequality led to publication of six books: A Bed Called Home- Life in Migrant Worker Hostels; Steering by the Stars - Growing up in Townships; Laying Ghosts to Rest - the Legacy of Race, Class and Gender in SA; A Passion for Freedom - Autobiography; Dreams, Betrayal and Hope.  She has published numerous journal and popular media articles on the Unacknowledged Legacy of Colonial Conquest, Apartheid and global inequities, and the urgent need for healing to restore our humanity as one human family and continues to promote Global Equity for a Healthy Planet.  

Dr Ramphele is a global public servant sitting on numerous advisory boards, panels, and commissions.  She is a sought-after speaker. She was a Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Town, a Managing Director at the World Bank, and non-Executive Director of many large corporates and Civil Society Organisations. She is an author and recipient of many awards including 23 honorary degrees.

Wahbie Long, Ph.D. is Professor in the Department of Psychology and Deputy Dean in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Cape Town. A clinical psychologist by training and former director of the UCT Child Guidance Clinic, he has held research fellowships at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute and Durham University’s Institute of Advanced Study.

With a B2 rating from the National Research Foundation of South Africa, he is a past recipient of the Early Career Achievement Award from the American Psychological Association’s Society for the History of Psychology. He has published widely on the history, theory and indigenization of psychology, and is an associate editor of the Oxford Encyclopedia of the History of Modern Psychology (Oxford University Press, 2022).

His first book – A History of ‘Relevance’ in Psychology(Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) – traces the contours of the ‘relevance’ debate in psychology since the 1960s. His latest book is Nation on the Couch: Inside South Africa’s Mind (MF Books, 2021), which draws on psychoanalytic theory to understand social problems in South Africa. 

Nation on the Couch was published to widespread acclaim and was longlisted for both the NIHSS and Sunday Times non-fiction awards. Considered “one of South Africa’s brightest academic minds” (Daily Maverick), he is working on a new book exploring the psychological aspects of social hierarchies in the modern world.

Dr Vusi Vilakati is an Organisational Consultant and Head of Business Integration, Insurance and Asset Management of Standard Bank.  Vusi is an African Spiritual Consciousness facilitator, scholar, and practitioner.

He is passionate about the intersection between identity, located-ness or positionality and context in the in the facilitation and embodiment of African spiritual consciousness, values, and practices within organisations. He believes that in the emerging VUCA business and public leadership context, Africa urgently needs to develop future referenced, contextually attuned and globally responsive leaders to translate business goals and leadership toward the continent's social and economic advancement. Previously, Vusi was an insightful civic organisation leader. He is known as a speaker, facilitator and researcher and his experience spreads across a number of key organisational roles in strategic planning, policy formulation, seminary lecturing, leadership training, facilitating diversity management initiatives, organisational transformation, and change, and coordinating in-service training, recruitment, selection and team building.

Vusi’s interests are African consciousness in leadership development, and coaching, the role of business in society, corporate citizenship, cross-cultural management, the contribution of emerging economies to global geo-economics, outcomes-based, and ethical leadership, leadership effectiveness, systems thinking, and holistic leadership development and economic and human advancement of Africa. Vusi holds MA in Theological studies, a MPhil HRM in Personal and Professional leadership and a doctorate in Leadership in Performance and Change (UJ). He is an experienced facilitator of immersive leadership development experiences focusing on diversity, inclusion, transformation and social entrepreneurship and will lead the immersion on day 3 of the ISPSO AM 2023.