Karin Ireton
Karin Ireton chairs the Greening the Future judging panel and is director of group sustainability management at Standard Bank South Africa. She advises the group on global sustainable development and its risks and opportunities with a focus on integrating the principles of sustainable development with the way the group conducts its business.
Ireton was head of sustainable development of markets and economics at Anglo American for eight years before joining Standard Bank. She was previously the sustainable energy adviser at Eskom and manager of the Industrial Environmental Forum.
Chesney Bradshaw
Chesney Bradshaw is head of sustainability at ABB South Africa. He has been involved in sustainability for the past four years, with a focus on corporate social investment, energy efficiency and the industrial environment. He manages ABB’s corporate social investment programme.
His career has involved journalism, public affairs, corporate communications and fast-moving consumer goods marketing. He has a BA from Unisa and an MBA from Heriot-Watt University in Scotland.
Irvan Damon
Irvan Damon is co-founder and partner of Carbon d’ Afreeque, an eco-entrepreneurship venture that specialises in recycling reclaimed advertising billboards into high-end eco-accessories. He holds an MA in Social Science from the University of Cape Town in democratic governance, a petroleum policy economics diploma from Wits Business School and an MPhil in engineering from UCT.
He created, hosted and produced Hybrid Living, an eco-lifestyle TV-guide show that won a Green Media Award from Johannesburg City Parks. He was also the executive editor and a regular contributor to eco-lifestyle consumer magazine Green Home.
Until recently he was ambassador for the Sustainable Energy Society of Southern Africa, where he represented member companies in the renewable and energy-efficient sectors.
He currently runs Carbon Track SA, a company that sells an innovative monitoring and verification device that tracks renewable energy assets, as well as the environmental and monetary savings generated. He commits a lot of time to raising the profile of low-carbon technologies, moderating and presenting at high-level international and local conferences.
Fiona Macleod
Fiona Macleod is an environmental writer for the Mail & Guardian and editor of the Greening the Future and Investing in the Future supplements. She is also editor of Lowveld Living magazine in Mpumalanga.
An award-winning journalist, she was previously environmental editor of the M&G for 10 years and was awarded the Nick Steele award for environmental conservation. She is a former editor of Earthyear magazine, chief subeditor and assistant editor of the M&G, managing editor of True Love and production editor of The Executive.
Wanda Mkutshulwa
Wanda Mkutshulwa is head of communications at SANParks. She has an educational background in journalism and international relations.
She worked briefly in print and broadcasting before joining the Commission on Restitution of Land Rights in 1999, initially as head of communication of the Eastern Cape regional Land Claims Commission and then as national communications co-ordinator in the office of the chief land claims commissioner.
She is the convenor of the SANParks Kudu awards adjudication panel.
Suraya Hamdulay
Suraya Hamdulay is executive head of the corporate citizenship division at Vodacom, which she joined in 2010 after completing a two-year contract with the Resolve Group.
During the preceding 10 years, she worked in the public sector in several capacities, focusing on strategic management, operational planning, monitoring, evaluation, organisational performance, international relations, stakeholder management and project and policy management.
She has expertise in public administration, economic development, environmental legislation, administrative, constitutional and labour law, local government, renewable energy, compliance and enforcement, land-use management planning, law reform, understanding the state of the national, provincial and local economies, partnership identification and development locally, regionally and internationally, and the establishment and maintenance of key networks in the public and private sector.
Crispian Olver
Crispian Olver is founder and chief executive of Linkd Environmental Services, a Johannesburg-based public policy and research company. He has been actively involved in developing climate policy in South Africa and in initiating action from businesses and local government to address climate mitigation and adaptation.
Linkd recently completed the policy and research work that informed South Africa’s response to climate change and supported preparations for the hosting of COP17, including managing popular policy discussions in the build-up to COP17 on behalf of the World Bank.
From 1999 to 2005 he was the director general of the department of environmental affairs and tourism and initiated most of the current environmental legislation in South Africa. He also steered South Africa through the early stages of the global climate negotiations and co-ordinated its hosting of the World Summit on Sustainable Development.
Before that, he was deputy director general in charge of local government in the department of constitutional development and chief director for the reconstruction and development programme in the office of the president.
He holds BSc (Med) and MbChB degrees from the University of Cape Town and worked as a senior medical officer at the Cecilia Makiwane Hospital for five years before joining the government in 1994.
Andrew Kaniki
Andrew Kaniki is executive director of knowledge fields development at the National Research Foundation. The initiative is responsible for research-funding programmes and the strategic oversight and development of the centre of excellence programme.
Before this, Kaniki was executive director for knowledge management and strategy at the foundation from 2002 to 2008. He was president of the Southern African Research and Innovation Management Association from 2003 to 2005.
Coleen Vogel
Coleen Vogel is an independent scholar. Until recently she held the BMW chair on sustainability at the University of the Witwatersrand and was a previous chairperson of the international scientific committee of the international human dimensions programme dealing with environmental change.
She is a recent recipient of the international Burtoni Award, which is awarded by peers in recognition of adaptation and climate change and climate change diplomacy. She was also one of a group of scientists awarded the Nobel peace prize for the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. She has also received the vice chancellor’s distinguished teacher’s award from the University of the Witwatersrand.
Her research interests include transformative education on global environmental change, urban risk reduction and climate change and development.
Blessing Manale
Blessing Manale is chief director: planning and co-ordination at the department of environmental affairs.
He graduated in law (LLB) at the University of the North (now Limpopo), and also holds a diploma in community relations and development communications from Prisa as well as a post-graduate diploma in corporate governance and strategy from the Graduate Institute of Management Technology.
In the past 20 years he has occupied various positions of leadership and responsibility in the youth and student movement and government in South Africa and internationally. He is multi skilled in media, local economic development, international relations, environmental reporting and corporate social investment.
Rosemary Noge
Rosemary Noge majored in international relations at Wellesley College in Boston, Massachusetts. She has worked in the mining industry for nine years and has extensive experience in the formulation of sustainable business strategy and practices for the industry.
She works independently and is a member of the National Business Initiative’s sustainable futures advisory committee and the UN Global Compact advisory committee.