“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” – Helen Keller
The Team
Meet Our Team
Noxolo has extensive experience and expertise in the philanthropic sector and a depth of experience in organisational and team leadership. She is passionate about sustainable economic and social development and equality, and the strategic role private philanthropy can play. She has been an advocate for growing and strengthening local philanthropy.
An MBA graduate from the Henley Business School in the UK, she also holds a post-graduate degree in Economic Policy and Development. Noxolo spent sixteen years in the financial services industry, within capital markets and wealth management.
She was previously the head of Philanthropy at Nedbank Private Wealth, providing a range of specialist advice and services to affluent individuals and families, JSE listed corporates as well as non-profit organisations (NPO’s) on sustainable and impactful giving. In this role she was responsible for the philanthropy strategy, developing the offering and growing assets under management and administration. Her areas of expertise include giving strategies, optimal structures for giving, compliance, governance, and best practice.
Born and raised in Durban, Yoni began working in the social justice sector soon after he completed his LLB at the University of Cape Town in 2009. After stints at Equal Education and the Social Justice Coalition in 2010, he joined Equal Education full-time in January 2011 as the organisation's Development Officer. He joined the organisation's management team in 2012 and in 2013 was appointed as the Chief Financial Officer, serving on Equal Education's senior management structure. He remained in this position until July 2020 when he began providing operations and fundraising support to several Cape Town non-profits on
a consultancy basis. Yoni joined the SJI in February 2021.
a consultancy basis. Yoni joined the SJI in February 2021.
Xoli completed a BA degree in Communication Science and Psychology in 2018 at Varsity College. She went on to further her studies at the University of Pretoria and holds a BA Hons degree in Augmentative and Alternative Communication. Her experience spans both the Civil Society Sector as well as Corporate.
Xoli is passionate about Communications in the workplace and how it can be utilised to inspire innovative solutions and convey the organisation’s brand and values both internally and externally. She is set on making a positive change within the Civil Society Sector using Communications.
Noxolo has over six and a half years of combined professional experience in research analysis, strategy, project & resource management, design implementation and stakeholder management. She brings forth a multidisciplinary background in Politics, Economics and African Studies, having obtained two master’s degrees from the University of Oxford and WITS University in African and Political Studies, respectively.
Prior to joining the SJI, Noxolo worked as a Senior Researcher for Nedbank. She was responsible for providing strategic direction in design research and to determine appropriate research methodologies, improve delivery cadence and the quality of research output, deliver customer insights, and identify strategic value propositions for the bank – in line with its digital mission. Prior to Nedbank, Noxolo worked in the non-profit sector as Project Manager for the Democracy Works Foundation where she led and managed a KPMG anti-corruption funded project, the Democracy Works Academy – a seven-month civic education and youth engagement fellowship, aimed at increasing the participation of young people in South Africa’s democratic processes.
Noxolo is passionate about social justice, particularly in addressing systemic poverty & inequality, and working towards the creation of a just society where its citizens have equitable access to opportunities.
Meet Our Board Members
“Cooperation is the thorough conviction that nobody can get there unless everybody gets there.” – Virginia Burden
Itumeleng Mahabane leads Brunswick’s Africa Business, Politics and Society practice. For more than fifteen years, including over a decade at Brunswick, he has advised leading multinationals on a signature corporate action, issue & crisis management and more recently on designing and demonstrating public and social value.
Before joining Brunswick, Mahabane was an award-winning financial journalist. He has written for the Mail and Guardian, the Sunday Times, the Business Times, the Financial Mail and Business Day. He was a political economy columnist and has contributed to some books on political economy.
Mahabane is the chairperson of the Social Justice Initiative, a member of the Board of Trustees of Equal Education Law Centre and the Waterford Kamhlaba Foundation of South Africa. He is a fellow of the Africa Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Harald has had more than 25 years of experience as a leader in civil society, government, corporate and strategic management consulting across multiple industries and geographic areas. He has worked on regulatory strategy, shared value, economic development, competitiveness and institutional transformation. He has occupied a number of leadership positions and has acted as a consultant for global strategic advisory firms. He held the position of Managing Director of SABMiller Asia as well as Executive Director: Strategy and Business Support at South African Breweries Ltd, the South African subsidiary of SABMiller PLC. In addition, as the Deputy Director General of South Africa's National Department of Transport, he led the process of fundamentally reinventing the national transport strategy dubbed "Moving South Africa" and restructuring the institutional landscape.
He joined the Department of Transport after serving 10 years in the labour movement, the majority of that time as a senior office-bearer and Deputy General Secretary in the COSATU-affiliated Transport & General Workers Union. Harald holds a B.Soc.Sc (Hons) in Sociology from the University of Cape Town.
Sithembile Mbete is a lecturer in the Department of Political Sciences at the University of Pretoria, where she lecturers international relations and South African politics. She is also a doctoral candidate at the university, writing a thesis on South Africa’s foreign policy during its two terms in the United Nations Security Council. She has published on the Economic Freedom Fighters’ (EFF) and South African elections in accredited journals. Her research has been funded by the National Institute for Humanities and Social Science (NIHSS), National Research Foundation (NRF), Social Science Research Council and the Mellon Foundation. In 2014 she was a visiting scholar at the Department of Political Science and Balsillie School of International Affairs at the University of Waterloo. She comments frequently in the media on a range of issues in South African politics.
Sithembile joined the University of Pretoria from The Presidency of South Africa, where she was a researcher in the secretariat of the National Planning Commission. Her work in this regard was focused on public service reform and anti-corruption policy. She contributed to the drafting of the National Development Plan. Prior to this she worked as a political researcher at IDASA (Institute for Democracy in Africa), where she was responsible for Parliamentary monitoring and political analysis.
Sithembile joined the University of Pretoria from The Presidency of South Africa, where she was a researcher in the secretariat of the National Planning Commission. Her work in this regard was focused on public service reform and anti-corruption policy. She contributed to the drafting of the National Development Plan. Prior to this she worked as a political researcher at IDASA (Institute for Democracy in Africa), where she was responsible for Parliamentary monitoring and political analysis.
Ezra Davids is the chairperson of Corporate/M&A at Bowmans specialising in mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, and securities law. He is the relationship partner for Bowman’s major clients such as Bharti, Verizon, Barrick Gold Corporation, Microsoft, UPS, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, UBS, Eskom and Transnet. He is the chairperson of the Faculty Advisory Board of the Law School of the University of Cape Town. He is a member of the board of trustees of the Legal Resources Trust and a patron of the Student Sponsorship Programme (a not for-profit organisation focusing on providing high school education to disadvantaged students). Davids is also the former chairperson of the subcommittee of the business organisation committee of the International Bar Association.
