AABS 2025 Connect Conference and 20th Anniversary Celebration

Jon is Dean and Director of Henley Business School in Africa, part of the Henley Business School UK, a leading global business school with campuses in Europe, Asia and Africa. With Henley Africa being the first school to be accredited by The Association of Africa Business schools (AABS), Henley now holds international quadruple accreditation, AABS, AACSB, AMBA and EQUIS. Henley’s purpose is ‘We build the people who build the businesses that build Africa.’

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Jon’s career includes roles as educator, dean, corporate executive, airline pilot, aerobatic competitor, writer and speaker. He has 45 years of international working experience. He has been a professor of innovation, MBA director, director of executive education, designer and director of numerous executive education programmes and lecturer in strategy, innovation and executive learning. His interests are economic and educational transformation, sustainability and business evolution.
Henley Africa has been an entrepreneurial success, with a strong reputation for progressive learning design and care for students and clients.

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Jon is chairman of the British Chamber of Business in Southern Africa, chairman of the Association of Africa Business Schools, board member of the Alliance of Management Development Associations in Rising Economies, and former vice-chair of the South African Business Schools Association. He is chair and founder of MBAid, an NPO that seeks to turn the energies of business schools to social good, which has worked with over 350 NGOs. Jon is also a Distinguished Professor at Woxsen University, India and a life Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, UK.

Samer Atallah has been an associate professor of economics at the Onsi Sawiris School of Business at The AmericanUniversity in Cairo (AUC) since 2011. He was a visiting scholar at the Center for Democracy, Development and Rule of Law at Stanford University in 2016 and a visiting scholar at the University of Chicago Center in Paris during the winter of 2014.

His research interests are in political economy and development economics. His research also covers game theory applications on the political economy of democratization and quantitative analysis of election results. His research has been published in the European Journal of Political Economy, the InternationalJournal of Economic Theory and the Theoretical Economic Letters. His research work in development economics covers intergenerational inequality, informality and quantitative analysis of household surveys.

He has earned his PhD and MA in economics from McGill University. The title of his PhD thesis is Essays on Resource-Dependent Economies: Political Economy andStrategic Behavior. He also holds a MSc in engineering from the University of California at Berkeley.

He is are search fellow at the Economic Research Forum and a member of the CanadianEconomics Association and the Middle East Economic Association.

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Barry van Zyl is a world-renowned musician with over 30 years experience in thecreative sector, from performance and production to executive education,strategy and business development. Having toured the world for 21 years withSouth Africa’s most famous export, Johnny Clegg, and while working with artistslike Annie Lennox, Carlos Santana, Peter Gabriel and Die Antwoord, Barrycompleted an MBA at Henley Business School and is now focused on the businessof music, creativity, and culture. Since 2018 Barry has been growing newbusiness for Henley Business School, starting in Nigeria and then in otherareas of west and east Africa, with the aim of ‘building the people, that buildthe businesses that build Africa’. As the Chair of Henley’s pan-African Alumnicommunity, Barry is leveraging Henley’s network of 80,000 alumni to build thebrand in new territories, develop the offer in existing markets, and createinnovative new revenue streams. Barry is partnering with premium organizationslike the Temple Management & Ogidi Studios group, and developing excitingprojects focused on creativity, content production, the future of music andeducation. In addition to this work, Barry embraces his passion for themarriage of the creative sector and executive leadership by designing anddelivering corporate leadership programs in creativity and innovation,entrepreneurship, and the business of rhythm. His clients include major SouthAfrican companies in financial and professional services, energy, travel andeducation. Despite his immense success in the creative industry, Barry’s mostimportant job is being a role model to his teenage daughter.

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Maurice Radebe, Head and Director of Wits Business School and a seasoned executive with over 30 years of experience in the energy industry. Formerly Executive Vice President at Sasol, he led global energy operations and major ventures in Qatar, Nigeria, and Mozambique. With a rich background including roles at Shell and Exel, Maurice has driven high-impact initiatives like the Go4Gr8 project and Sasol’s Phoenix programme. He is also the Founder and Chairman of the Unleashing Leadership Potential Foundation, dedicated to empowering future leaders in South Africa.

Prof. Daniel J Petzer is a Professor of the University of Reading, Head of Research, and Programme Director of the DBA programme at Henley Business School - Africa. He is also an extraordinary professor of the Department of Marketing Management at the University of Pretoria . He holds a PhD (Marketing Management) specialising in services marketing and is a South Africa’s National Research Foundation (NRF) rated researcher.

Professor Olayinka David-West is a distinguished academic and thought leader in business management and technology, serving as Associate Dean at Lagos Business School, Pan-Atlantic University and a board member of the Association of African Business Schools (AABS). With decades of experience in IT and financial services, she is a passionate advocate for digital transformation and financial inclusion. She leads the Sustainable and Inclusive Digital Financial Services (SIDFS) initiative, driving financial inclusion in Nigeria and fostering collaborations between businesses, startups, and policymakers. Her work has earned international recognition, and she is frequently sought after as a speaker and consultant. Professor David-West holds multiple certifications in governance and technology and is dedicated to mentoring young women in STEM, solidifying her as a leading voice in Africa's fintech industry.

Angela Ndunge currently serves as an AABS Board Member, and Deputy Executive Dean at Strathmore Business School (SBS), where she also holds the position of a full-time Lecturer in Organisational Behaviour and Leadership. She has earned an MSc in Work and Organisational Psychology and a Doctor of Philosophy in Applied Psychology from the University of Nottingham (UK). Additionally, Dr. Ndunge is recognized as a chartered member of The British Psychological Society, highlighting her expertise in the field.

Ayman Ismail is the Abdul Latif Jameel Endowed Chair of Entrepreneurship and associate professor at the Onsi Sawiris School of Business and the founding director of the AUC Venture Lab, which was recognized as a high impact university business incubator in Africa (2014) and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) (2015) by UBI Global.

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Sherif Kamel is a professor of management at the Heikal Department of Management and the dean of the Onsi Sawiris School of Business at The American University in Cairo (AUC). Previously, he served as the university vice president for information management. Before joining the university, he was the director of the Regional Information Technology Institute and managed the training department of the Cabinet of Egypt Information and Decision Support Center.

Hazel Walker joined The Case Centre team in 2002. As its Director of External Relations she is responsible for developing and supporting network relationships with organisations across academia. Hazel manages The Case Centre’s attendance at management conferences and its portfolio of case competitions. She also supports new and developing case writers and teachers through the organisation’s scholarship programmes. She is Handling Editor of The Case Centre's journal, Case Focus: TheJournal of Business & Management Teaching Cases, Middle East and Africa Edition.

Moataz Darwish is an Associate Professor of Practice at The American University in Cairo's (AUC) Onsi Sawiris School of Business and a former senior Shell executive. Darwish combines 25 years of his career in energy management with his academic and executive training experience, enabled by his academic credentials and practical experience. Darwish is currently a PhD candidate from Bradford University in the UK, where he was granted a part-scholarship for his research in the area of strategy and entrepreneurship, analyzing the mental and business models of Big Tech and Big Oil firms.

Ahmed Elsayed is the Executive Director of J-PAL Middle East and North Africa (MENA) at the American University in Cairo (AUC) and an Associate Professor at the AUC School of Business. He leads J-PAL MENA’s strategic direction, overseeing research, policy outreach, and capacity-building initiatives, while fostering partnerships with policymakers in the region.

Before joining AUC and J-PAL in 2022, Ahmed was a Senior Researcher at IZA-Institute of Labor Economics in Germany, where he also served as Deputy Program Director of the “Gender, Growth, and Labor Markets inLow-Income Countries” research program.

He is currently a Research Fellow at IZA, ROA, and the EconomicResearch Forum (ERF). His research focuses on development economics, applied micro-econometrics, migration, and labor economics, with a particular interest in the intersection of research and policy.

Ahmed holds an MSc in Business Research and a PhD in Economics from Maastricht University.

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Tumi Dlamini is a corporate lawyer with amulti-disciplinary background in Corporate Law, African Development, CorporateGovernance, Public Policy and global partnerships. Currently an advisor to theAPRM an agency of the African Union (AU), she has spent the past 7 years advisingAfrican governments on policy reforms to strengthen corporate governance standardsin Africa. She has assessed and reported on governance practices in Ghana,Egypt, Liberia, Algeria, Senegal, Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, Ethiopia,Nigeria and others. She recently led the development of the first ever AfricanPrinciples and Guidelines on Corporate Governance. ThePrinciples represent a bold step towards redisigning, redefining andreimagining corporate governance in Africa and globally. They empowerbusinesses not only to pursue profit but to also contribute meaningfully to thesocio-economic development of their communities and the continent at large.

Prior, Tumi was the first black woman partnerat Bowmans, a Pan African law firm in South Africa where she specialised incorporate law and cross border Mergers and Acquisitions. She was also  the Executive Director of a BusinessFederation in SA and served on the board of BUSA.

She is an international and TEDx Speaker andhas written articles on the role of corporate governance in Africa to promoteinclusive growth and has served on several boards including JSE ListedCompanies, public sector and Non-Profit sector. Tumi is passionate aboutpromoting access to quality education and is a recent former President ofHarvard University Association South Africa where she promoted access toopportunities for talented but disenfranchised South Africans to study atHarvard University. She is also the Founder of the Thinabantu Foundation whichsupports talented but vulnerable girls from rural and township communities inKZN to gain access to transformational education opportunities in boardingschools.  

She holds a BSoc Sci in Politics and IndustrialSociology from the University of Cape Town and a Masters in     Public Administration and Public Policyfrom the Harvard Kennedy School Government.

Dr. David Mathuva is a Senior Lecturer and Associate Dean, Academics and Student Affairs at Strathmore University Business School. He specializes in corporate reporting, forensic audit, and financial investigations, and consults widely across East Africa. A published scholar and fellow of ACCA-IAAER and INSEAD-GBSN, David has authored numerous academic works and facilitated several executive trainings. David is also a board member and serves on editorial boards of top accounting and finance journals. He is currently the editor in chief, Strathmore Africa Case Centre.

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Maha Mourad is a tenured professor of marketing at The American University in Cairo (AUC). She is a former visiting associate professor of business studies at Drew University, NJ. She was granted a Fulbright scholar in Residence Grant at North Central College, Naperville, IL, the United States, in 2015-2016. She was awarded her PhD from The University of Nottingham Business School, United Kingdom. In addition, she had two post doctoral research grants: The Fulbright Post Doctoral research grant at George Washington University, DC, USA (2006) and the Erasmus Mundus Post Doctoral research grant at Warsaw School of Economics, Poland (2012).

Martin is a consultant in organisation and leadership development; a designer and facilitator of innovation and organisation change processes; a trainer; coach and author.

Martin serves as Senior Faculty Member of the Presencing Institute, supporting clients that include the Global Alliance forBanking on Values (GABV), the Rand Merchant Bank (RMB), WWF, the HumanitarianLeadership Academy and the COFRA Group. He is Visiting Fellow of the University of Oxford’s Said Business School.

Between 2010 and 2022, Martin served as Senior Adviser to the Tony Blair Institute forGlobal Change – playing the role of Thinking Partner with Secretaries toCabinet and Chiefs of Staff to a number of Heads of State in African. Between March 2005 and May 2008, Martin served as Special Consultant to the President of Zambia, responsible for re-establishing the position ofChief of Staff in the Presidency.

He is the author of the bestseller Leading Like Madiba: Leadership Lessons from NelsonMandela (2006) which has been translated into six languages; It’s How WeEnd That Matters: Leadership Lessons from an African President (2009) and Driftology: How to Access Life’s Greatest Opportunities by Flying on the Wings of Others(2015).

Martin holds professional qualifications in Organisation Development and Coaching; and academic qualifications in Public Affairs, Philosophy, Development Economics andAnthropology.

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Alaa Amer P&G One Africa Talent Acquisition Leader, Graduated with bachelor’s in pharmacy &
biotechnology from the GUC. Currently leading talent & external employer branding for Egypt,
Morocco & South Africa for all sites.

Hala Barakat is a seasoned business leader and passionate advocate for entrepreneurship and leadership. With a diverse career spanning hospitality, banking, and manufacturing, she has honed her skills in strategy, operations, and finance. Currently, as the Director of the American University in Cairo's Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (AUC CEI), Hala is dedicated to empowering emerging entrepreneurs, fostering a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem and supporting rising SMEs. She has successfully led initiatives to support youth startups, scale-ups, and women entrepreneurs; in leadership positions, securing significant funding and partnerships. She is also leading the Corporate Governance Unit, championing the AUC Egypt Women on Boards Observatory as well as the Family Business Consortium.
Prior to her role at AUC CEI, Hala founded and managed Arabiaware, a successful retail, export/import business. She continues her work in business development and management consulting. She sits on the board of a number of Associations and committed to mentoring younger promising generations. She has also held leadership positions at renowned institutions, including the Arab African International Bank and Canwell Canada. Hala is a strong advocate for women's empowerment and has actively contributed to initiatives promoting gender equality in the workplace. She holds a Master's degree in Economics in International Development from the American University in Cairo and attaining a PhD in Economics from Cairo University.

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