Prof William Gumede is Associate Professor & former Convener, Political Economy, School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. He is the Founder and Executive Chairperson of Democracy Works Foundation, now based in eight countries. He is the Chairperson of Action Aid. He is one of the founding directors, in establishing PLAAF, the platform for the protection of whistle-blowers in Africa, based in Senegal. Previously he was Programme Director, Africa Asia Centre, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. He was Course-Leader, School of Public Policy, Central European University, Budapest. He was Senior Associate Member & Oppenheimer Fellow, St. Antony’s College, Oxford University; Senior Research Fellow & Graduate Student Mentor, London School of Economics and Political Sciences (LSE); Course-Leader, New School University, New York; Press Fellow, Wolfson College, Cambridge University, and Visiting Fellow, Duke University.
He was former Member of the Editorial Panel, PostGlobal, Washington Post Newspaper & Newsweek, Washington DC; and former Deputy Editor of the Sowetan newspaper. He has won a number of South African and international awards for activism, journalism and writing, including the South African Courageous Journalism Award (1995), the British Diageo Award for Excellence in Reporting on Africa for work on Nigeria (2005), and was awarded a Special Commendation by UNESCO (2006). He is the author of a couple of number one bestsellers. His most recent book is South Africa in BRICS (Tafelberg)