Our conference theme – Ethical Leadership Beyond Profit | Organisations as Catalysts for Ethical Societies – suggests that organisational leaders may have an increasing responsibility (and opportunity) to play a positive formative role in society. Throughout history, our greatest leaders have been those who made an indelible positive impact on the world, often contributing to the creation of more just societies.
In an era marked by increasing insecurity and global uncertainty, the future direction of our societies is progressively unclear. Global political tensions, climate change, artificial intelligence, and corruption add to this uncertainty, with governments unable to solve these issues alone.
We will hear from Mr. Ignatius Sehoole, CEO of KPMG Southern Africa, known for his leadership in corporate governance, financial management, and investment, and Ms. Busisiwe Mavuso, CEO of Business Leadership South Africa, recognised for her dedication to business leadership and economic development. Together, they will inspire leaders to reflect on their personal journeys and consider the contributions they, and others, can make at the leadership level. We will explore how organisational leaders can take on this growing responsibility, driven not only by benevolence but by the necessity of ensuring the sustainability of both our organisations and our society.
The conference consists of two parts: an Ethical Leadership Symposium followed by a Practical Ethics Workshop. The event is presented in a hybrid format, offering the option to attend either in person or virtually.
Ms Busisiwe Mavuso
Busisiwe Mavuso is a Certified Chartered Accountant, qualified with the Association of Certified Chartered Accountants (ACCA – UK) and holds two Master’s Degrees, a Master’s Degree of Philosophy in Applied Business Leadership and Management (UCAM – Spanish University), and another Master’s Degree in Business Leadership (UNISA), a Postgraduate Qualification in Management (GIBS) and a B. Compt in Accounting (UNISA). Busi is currently completing her PhD.
Busi is the Chief Executive Officer at Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) and Non-Executive Director of Business Unity South Africa (BUSA), Business Against Crime South Africa (BACSA) and Resultant Finance (a PIC investee company). She serves on the Human Resources Development Council (HRDC) and Council of Social Justice Champions (COSOC).
Busi is a member of the IoDSA, ACCA and YPO.
She was awarded the ‘2020 Influencer of Influencers Award’ by the Africa Brand Summit in October 2020 and was named second runner up for ‘Businessperson of the Year’ by Daily Maverick in 2021. In 2022, the Women in Economic Development Leadership Forum awarded Busi a Certificate of Acknowledgement to recognise the years of dedication to the field of business leadership and economic development in South Africa. In 2024, Busi received the runner up ‘Business Leader of the Year’ Award, from the Future Leader Forum.
Mr Ignatius Sehoole
Ignatius Sehoole holds the position of Africa Chairman & CEO at KPMG Southern Africa. Ignatius is a seasoned and qualified Charted Accountant (SA) with over 28 years’ experience within the Financial Services industry.
Ignatius Sehoole has served on numerous high level positions as well as several board memberships within his career. These include serving as the Committee Chairman for the Audit Committee of the Public Investment Corporation, Chairman of the Risk and Capital Management Committee for African Bank, Director for the Thuthuka Education Upliftment Fund Directors Committee as well as a Committee Member for the Audit Committee and Nominating Committee of IFAC.
Before his current role as CEO, Ignatius served as the Vice President (South East Africa) for MTN Group Limited. In this role, he managed the operations within South East Africa for the MTN Group responsible for profitability and balance sheet management. He has also served as the Deputy Chief Executive Officer for Pricewaterhouse-Coopers Southern Africa and as an Executive President for the South African Institute of Charted Accountants (SAICA).
Ignatius has also had the privilege of serving as a board member on the Specialist Committee on Company Law as well as an Independent non executive Director for the Board of Old Mutual
Ms Lebohang Boshoff
Lebohang Boshoff is the Group Ethics Officer at FirstRand, where she leads the group’s ethics and responsible business conduct efforts. With a background in corporate law, she previously served as Legal Counsel at FirstRand Bank and practised at a leading South African law firm.
Lebohang holds legal qualifications from the University of the Witwatersrand and has completed executive programmes through the Gordon Institute of Business Science, Duke Corporate Education, and the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford. She is an admitted attorney of the High Court of South Africa and a passionate advocate for ethical leadership and good governance.
Ms Karen Robinson
​Karen Robinson serves as the Group Company Secretary and Head of Ethics at Vodacom Group Limited. With over two decades of experience in corporate governance, Karen has held company secretary positions across various listed and unlisted companies in diverse industries. Her previous roles include serving as Company Secretary at Huge Group Limited, Gold Fields Limited, Aveng Limited, and FedGroup Holdings Pty Ltd. ​
Beyond her corporate roles, Karen has contributed to academia by lecturing in company secretarial practice and corporate governance, and authoring texts on these subjects. She holds a Master of Laws (LLM) degree and is a Fellow of the Chartered Governance Institute (FCG). Additionally, Karen is a certified ethics officer, underscoring her commitment to upholding the highest standards of ethical conduct in corporate governance.
Mr Lulama Qabaka
Lulama was employed at Armscor (2016–2020) as a Compliance and Risk Officer. During this time, he was responsible for implementing ethics initiatives within the organisation, as well as introducing the Anti-Bribery Management System ISO 37001. These activities included conducting ethics training for employees, drafting key ethics documents such as the Code of Conduct and fraud risk plans, and managing the whistle-blower hotline.
Lulama Qabaka joined The Ethics Institute in February 2020 as an Ethics and Anti-Corruption Specialist and served as TEI’s Subject Matter Expert for State-Owned Entities. His role involved advising clients on ethics-related matters, conducting and compiling ethics risk assessments, and delivering ethics training at all organisational levels. He was also a faculty member for the Ethics Officer Certification Programme.
In 2024, Lulama joined the South African National Blood Service as the Ethics Manager. He holds a B.Com Law degree and is a certified Ethics Officer.
Dr Liezl Groenewald
Dr Liezl Groenewald is the CEO of The Ethics Institute (TEI) based in South Africa, a past president of the Business Ethics Network of Africa (BEN-Africa) and is a co-founding director of The Whistleblower House. She holds a Master and a Doctoral degree in Applied Ethics from the University of the Witwatersrand and Stellenbosch University respectively.
She takes on the role of a seasoned facilitator for TEI, as well as for the Institute of Directors South Africa (IoDSA). Additionally, she serves as guest lecturer at a business school in Innsbruck, Austria (MCI), as well as business schools in South Africa.
Liezl is a sought-after speaker at both local and international conferences. She contributes her insights as a media commentator on matters related to ethics and whistleblowing, and adeptly moderates discussions. Her expertise extends to being an author of articles on business and military ethics. Notably, she has authored a Whistleblowing Non-retaliation Toolkit, Whistleblowing First Responder Guide, along with the Whistleblowing Management Handbook. She has also co-authored the Ethics and Compliance Handbook, as well as the Institutionalising Ethics Handbook.
In terms of her affiliations, Liezl actively participates in several governing bodies and committees, e.g. the Council of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), the King Committee on Good Governance and the SAICA Ethics Committee. She chairs the Governance of Ethics Committee of CPUT, the Social and Ethics Committee Forum of the IoDSA, and the Disciplinary Committee of the Institute of Internal Auditors South Africa (IIASA). She furthermore served on working groups such as the global technical working groups for ISO 37000, the ISO Standard for the Governance of Organisations, as well as ISO 37002, the ISO Whistleblowing Management Standard.
Prof. Deon Rossouw
Prof Deon Rossouw previously served as the CEO of The Ethics Institute (based in Pretoria) and currently holds the position of governance associate. He is an Extraordinary Professor in Philosophy at the University of Stellenbosch, and Chairperson of the International Banknote Ethics Initiative.
Deon studied at Stellenbosch University where he also was chairman of the student representative council. His academic career started at Rand Afrikaans University in Johannesburg where he became Professor and Head of the Philosophy Department and served on the Executive Committee of the University. In 2004, he moved to the University of Pretoria where he was Head of the Philosophy Department and Director of the Centre for Business and Professional Ethics. During 2008 to 2009, he spent a year as Program Executive for Business Ethics at the Globethics.net Foundation in Geneva, Switzerland.
Deon is an internationally recognized expert in Business Ethics and the Ethics of Corporate Governance, and published several books as well as academic articles in leading international journals.
He was the Founding President of the Business Ethics Network of Africa (BEN-Africa) and served as President of the International Society of Business, Economics and Ethics (ISBEE).
Deon is a member of the King Committee for Corporate Governance in South Africa. He also chairs the Social and Ethics Committee Forum of the IoDSA.
He has been recognized as a Chartered Director by the Institute of Directors of South Africa, and serve in executive and non-executive positions on a number of governing bodies.
Mr Kris Dobie
Kris Dobie is Senior Manager: Organisational Ethics at The Ethics Institute (TEI), based in Pretoria, South Africa. His involvement in organisational ethics started in 2004, and he has developed a special interest in corruption prevention.
Over the years Kris Dobie has supported the South African Government with numerous policy projects, including the development of the Minimum Anti-Corruption Capacity Guidance and the 2016 South African Local Government Anti-Corruption Strategy. He has initiated and led a number of funded initiatives, including the Local Government Ethical Leadership Initiative (LGELI) and the Ethically Aware Supplier Induction Programme (EASI).
Kris is the lead researcher on the South African Citizens’ Bribery Survey, as well as the Public Sector Ethics Survey, and he co-authored the TEI Ethics Reporting and Auditing Handbook. He served on the Global Reporting Initiative’s anti-corruption working group for the review of the ethics and anti-corruption reporting guidelines for the GRI’s G4 reporting standard. He also served on the National Anti-Corruption Strategy Reference Group which was tasked with finalising the 2020 South African National Anti-Corruption Strategy.
He holds a degree in Landscape Architecture from the University of Pretoria, as well as MPhil in Workplace Ethics (Cum Laude) from the same institution.
Dr Paul Vorster
Dr Paul Vorster is an accomplished Industrial Organisational Psychologist who has dedicated his career to training and development programmes and research that promote ethical decision-making and conduct in the workplace.
He earned his Doctor of Philosophy in Industrial-Organisational Psychology from the University of Johannesburg with his primary topic involving the psychometric measurement of personality. Additionally, he obtained an Ethics Officer Certification from the University of Stellenbosch Business School (USB) and The Ethics Institute. He has also consulted with the United Nations funded International Anti-Corruption Academy and is also a member of the International Test Commission which evaluates psychometric validity of survey measurement techniques (psychometrics).
With over 11 years of experience in training and development, and psychometric measurement, Dr Vorster has expertise in a range of content areas. He has facilitated programmes in leadership profiling, ethics and business ethics, ethical culture and climate, ethical decision-making, behavioural ethics (combating social forces that may undermine ethical decision-making), ethics ambassador training, resolving ethical dilemmas and challenges, and professional ethics. He has also made a substantial impact in the measurement of ethical culture and climate and is one of the custodians of the Ethics Ambassador Programme. Dr Vorster has written the Ethical Culture Handbook as well as the Ethics Ambassadors’ Handbook both of which try to help organisations to improve and understand their ethical culture. In addition, he has also been the custodian of the South African Business Ethics Survey as well as the Social and Ethics Committee Trends Survey both of which illuminate the state of the governance of ethics, ethics management, and ethical culture in organisations across South Africa. Dr Vorster’s efforts have had a significant impact, and he is credited with the development of the Ethics@theMovies concept, which has been implemented in South Africa since 2013. He is also credited with assisting organisations to engage in behavioural ethics programmes helping them to improve their ethical culture maturity.
Dr Vorster is a respected thought leader and has been invited to speak at various events. He has shared his insights at conferences, workshops, and webinars. He has also been a guest on several TV and radio shows, where he has discussed the importance of promoting ethical decision-making in the workplace.
Mrs Fatima Rawat
Fatima Rawat holds the position of Senior Ethics Subject Matter Expert at The Ethics Institute, where she is an integral part of the Public Sector Team.
With over two decades of experience, Fatima is an admitted attorney who has dedicated her career to supporting and advising the public sector. Her expertise spans Corporate Governance, Ethics Management, Legal Affairs, and Human Resources.
In addition to her consulting role, Fatima is actively involved in training and facilitating discussions on organisational ethics. She plays a crucial role in various educational programmes, including The Ethics Institute’s Ethics Officer Certification Programme, the University of Johannesburg’s Corporate Governance Programme, and the IODSA’s Governance of Ethics and Social & Ethics Committee Programmes.
Fatima is a member of professional committees such as the IODSA’s Social and Ethics Committee Forum and SAICA’s Ethics Committee. Her contributions extend beyond consultancy and training as she has co-authored significant publications like the Ethics Ambassador Handbook and the Local Government Ethics Committee Handbook.
Sponsorship Opportunities
The Ethics Institute’s 12th Annual Hybrid Ethics Conference on 29 May 2025 at The Venue Melrose Arch will bring together influential leaders to explore the theme “Ethical Leadership Beyond Profit: Organisations as Catalysts for Ethical Societies.” Featuring Prof. Bonang Mohale and Ms. Busisiwe Mavuso, the conference will provide critical insights into the role of ethical leadership in shaping sustainable organisations and societies. Sponsorship opportunities are available for organisations committed to advancing ethical business practices and fostering meaningful dialogue on ethical restoration.
With thanks to our Sponsors
