Dr Judy, the current Chancelor of the University of the Witwatersrand, is a medical doctor and has a doctorate in business leadership. She worked as a medical practitioner for 13 years starting at the King Edward VIII hospital, and later running a successful primary health care centre at the Umlazi township in Durban. During this period, she consulted for different businesses in occupational health, using her Diploma in Occupational Health obtained from University of Free State. After completing an MBA from Wits Business School, she spent two years at HSBC Investment Bank in the Corporate Finance & Advisory department in Johannesburg. She’s been in business for 28 years through the Mbekani Group that she founded in 1996, whilst still in medical practice.
Her past non-executive directorships include Discovery Holdings Ltd where she chaired the transformation and remuneration committees, Northam Platinum Ltd, Woolworths Holdings Limited and Anglo-American plc. She is former chair of Aspen Phamacare Limited and Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre (Pty) Ltd. She’s the current non-executive director at the SA SME Fund. She’s the co-founder of Sifiso Publishers, Future Nation Schools and Sifiso Learning Group. Establishing schools with her family inspired her to obtain a qualification in teaching which she obtained from Wits University in 2022.
Her philanthropic initiatives include Mkhiwa Trust, a family public benefit organisation that invests in education and rural development. She’s the Founder, Chairperson and Sponsor of Female Academic Leaders Fellowship (FALF) NPC., a public benefit organisation that develops a pipeline of black female academic leaders.
She’s authored two books and co-authored another two. She writes to inform and empower. Her first book which became a bestseller titled ‘Equal but Different’ was based on her doctoral thesis which investigated the impact of intersectionality on women leaders’ career progression which informed strategies for gender transformation at leadership level. She’s a mother, gogo, wife, and sister.
