Virtual VC’s Open Lecture: Colin Coleman

Dear colleagues and students

I am excited to invite you to the first Vice-Chancellor’s Open Lecture for 2020, which will also be the first in this series to be held online. It will be presented by Colin Coleman, senior fellow and lecturer at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. His lecture is titled “From a two-speed economy to one for all South Africans”.

The lecture will focus on how apartheid's legacy two-speed economy, and the fault lines exposed by COVID-19, has shone a light on South Africa's food security, inequality and unemployment challenges. Coleman will offer insights into how to restructure the economy into one working for all. The time is now for a post COVID-19 nationwide movement to defeat unemployment, to promote inclusion and build food security.

Coleman was born in South Africa. In the 1980s, he was involved in the anti-apartheid movement and later its constitutional transition. From 1989 to 1994, he was an executive director for the Consultative Business Movement (CBM) where he served in working groups of the multi-party talks, facilitated the International Mediation Forum and helped to negotiate the agreement to facilitate all parties’ participation in South Africa’s 1994 elections.

With a rich history of deal-making in Africa, Coleman is regarded as an expert on the economic development challenges and opportunities across the continent.

In 1994, on behalf of the CBM, Coleman was a recipient of the Harvard Business School’s “Business Statesman Award” and was named one of Euromoney's World Top Ten “Financing Leaders for the 21st Century.” In 1996, he was nominated as one of the World Economic Forum’s Global Leaders for Tomorrow.

Until recently Coleman was the head of investment banking for sub-Saharan Africa at Goldman Sachs. He continues to co-chair the Youth Employment Service and is a member of the Steering Committee of the CEO Initiative in South Africa. He is also senior advisor to the Eurasia Group, and a non-executive member of the Board of The Foschini Group.

In his position at Yale University he launched a course on “Africa: doing business in the last frontier of global growth”.

We look forward to hearing from Coleman and invite you all to join us for this insightful online lecture.

When: Wednesday, 15 July 2020

Time: 18:00

Platform: Microsoft Teams

Please register online to attend the lecture.

Sincerely

Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng
Vice-Chancellor

Read previous communications:

• From the UCT Executive
• Campus Announcements