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Rhodes University
Trust USA

Donovan Neale-May
Chairman of the Board of Trustees
+1 650-222-5260
donovan@globalfluency.com

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Rhodes University Trust USA Board Members

Donovan Neale-MayDonovan Neale-May
President
GlobalFluency, Inc.


Neale-May is founder and executive director of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council (www.cmocouncil.org), a global affinity network of more than 16,000 senior marketing executives in 10,000 companies controlling nearly $1 trillion in annual, aggregated marketing spend. He is also the founder and executive director of the Business Performance Innovation (BPI) Network ( www.bpinetwork.org), a global community of executive change agents dedicated to transformation, business remodeling, process innovation and corporate renovation.

Neale-May recently formed and leads a new Growth Officer Council for chief growth, revenue, commercial, finance and business development leaders and RevTech innovators. The first thought leadership initiative, dubbed Growth Engineering: Mapping Routes to Revenue, includes an online content resource (www.growthguidancecenter.com).

Neale-May also serves as president of GlobalFluency, Inc., an international demand generation marketing firm and innovator of thought leadership content marketing using an Intelligent Market Engagement® model. Previously, he held senior management roles at marketing, promotions, and PR agencies, including Ogilvy & Mather, in Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, New York, and London. During his four decades as an international marketing and brand strategist, Neale-May has consulted with over 300 leading multi-nationals, new venture starts and emerging growth companies.

A native South African, Neale-May also founded and runs the SABLE (South African Business Link to Experts) community, a trusted group (www.sablenetwork.com) of global expat South Africans. These domain experts provide mentoring, coaching and advisory services to South African companies, entrepreneurs and institutions seeking to fund or commercialize innovation, as well as enter, grow, and partner in worldwide markets.

Neale-May served for 18 years on the board of directors of Travelzoo (NASDAQ: TZOO). He chairs the Rhodes University Trust in the USA and sits on the university’s board of governors in South Africa. He has also served as an adjunct professor at Seoul National University in South Korea. Neale-May left South Africa in 1974 to play rugby professionally in Italy. He now keeps a home in Simon’s Town, South Africa to escape the California crush in Santa Cruz.

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Guy WhiteAdriane Hofmeyr
Public Interest Attorney

Adriane is originally from East London, South Africa. She graduated with a BA LLB from Rhodes University in 1991. After completing her articles at C&A Friedlander in Cape Town, she was in-house counsel at the Cape Town City Council during South Africa's transition to democracy. She presented a course to the City's 13,000 employees on the impact of South Africa's brand-new constitution on the daily functioning of government. She got an LL.M in constitutional law at the University of the Witwatersrand in 1998, and then moved to the United States. She practiced as a Deputy District Attorney in Colorado Springs, Colorado, before moving to Tucson, Arizona. She now has her own law firm, focusing on environmental and public-interest litigation against state and federal government. She is currently the chair of the board of the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest (a non-profit law firm that brings precedent-setting lawsuits against the government), and is the immediate past chair of the Appellate Practice Section of the State Bar of Arizona. She is a member of the state bars of Arizona, Colorado, California and South Africa. She has two children, Finlay (a mathematics high school teacher) and Lucy (a student at the University of Arizona). She is married to David Tomizuka, and has a blended family of seven children. Adriane returns often to South Africa to see her family (her sister Vivienne Holmes, also a Rhodes alum, lives in Johannesburg). She remains close to her Rhodes diaspora, including Matthew Rose-Innes, Jonathan Elliot, Rolfe Casewell and Alex McGowan.

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Guy WhiteBryony Winn,
President,
Health Solutions, Elevance Health

As president of health solutions, Bryony Winn is responsible for ensuring that the ~50 million consumers in Elevance Health’s family of health plans have access to high-quality, affordable, equitable care. Leading a division of 11,000 associates, she is accountable for building and managing relationships with care providers across the nation, total cost of care, clinical strategy, advanced analytics, operations excellence, and more. Previously chief strategy officer, Bryony was the architect of Elevance Health’s enterprise strategy to become a lifetime, trusted health partner to stakeholders from across the healthcare ecosystem.

Before joining Elevance Health in June 2020, Winn was chief strategy and innovation officer for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina. There, she defined a multi-faceted, five-year enterprise strategy; led M&A; negotiated and closed ~20 investments, including incubating two new companies; spearheaded a nation-leading value-based care strategy; and more. Prior to that, Bryony spent a decade with McKinsey & Company providing strategic and operational counsel to a wide variety of clients across Europe and Africa. She relocated to the U.S. in 2011 as a partner in McKinsey’s Chicago office where she advised numerous healthcare CEOs and state leaders seeking to improve systems of care and transform payment models.

A native of Zimbabwe and Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, Bryony has been long active in supporting communities and helping to lead companies. She serves on the board of directors for Unified Women’s Healthcare, BioCrossroads, and Apree Health. Recent professional appointments include those with the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders, the Fast Company Impact Council, and the Executive Forum of CMS’ Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network.

A wife and mother to three children, Bryony resides with her family in Indianapolis. Follow her on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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Donovan Neale-MayCaroline Rowland
Filmaker and Strategic Marketing Consultant


Credited by The Observer as being one of the 10 most influential people in bringing the Olympic Games to London, Caroline Rowland is a senior level strategist who has helped 10 cities and countries secure hosting rights to major international sports events and has supported six organizing committees in their destination marketing, audience engagement and commercial partnership campaigns when hosting major events.

Over the last 20 years, Caroline has become recognized as both a formidable business leader and prolific global film-maker and story-teller. She founded New Moon in 1996 and grew the business to become a multi-million dollar strategic and creative agency, producing over 120 award-winning promotional and documentary films over that period.

Now living between California and London, Caroline is British / Swiss citizen and was educated in South Africa. She has twice been nominated as Entrepreneur of the Year in Britain, was awarded South African Woman in Business of the Year in 2013 and nominated as British South African Business Leader of the year in 2015. In 2016, Caroline was awarded the Distinguished Rhodian Award by her Alma Mater, Rhodes University.

Her creative awards include an Emmy nomination for ‘FIRST: The Official Film of the London 2012 Olympic Games’ as well as the New York Festivals Grand Prix and IVCA Grand Prix for her work for London 2012.

Caroline’s strategic advisory skills stem from her high level of exposure to business and government on five continents, her extensive network of global contacts in sport, education and the arts, a strong understanding of rights, digital content strategy and execution as well as audience acquisition and stakeholder engagement campaigns.

Caroline is highly commercially astute, but with a strong creative insight and enviable global network. She brings a pragmatic approach to problem solving at a senior level as well as being an inspirational presenter and interviewer.

A former competitive swimmer, Caroline is an enthusiastic horsewoman, golfer, private pilot and keen skier.

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Guy WhiteClive J. Shiff, PhD
Associate Professor
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Distinguished Alumni Award 2018

South African-trained Dr Clive Shiff is one of the most experienced full-time researchers and lecturers in America’s entire health sector. Dr Shiff completed an MSc in Zoology and Entomology in 1956 and a PhD in 1964 at Rhodes University. He serves as a Professor at Johns Hopkins within the Molecular Microbiology and Immunology Department.

The Rhodes University alumnus has been a key member of teams that have crushed the tsetse fly as a public health threat in Southern Africa which now has a data-enriched handle on the malaria and bilharzia parasites. As a young researcher and field officer, Dr Shiff helped develop several life-saving innovations, including low-cost hygienic pit latrines and simple environmental interventions for village water supplies. In his current role at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Dr Shiff has lead key research in the relationship between bilharzia (now called schistosomiasis) and bladder cancer and remains an investigator at the Malaria Institute in Macha, Zambia. This functions as a core facility for the Research community at Johns Hopkins University, with a focus on field research. He has successfully championed an environmental, Africa-specific model for the West’s response to African parasitic diseases.

Dr Shiff has contributed to a number of research findings including: The Diagnosis of both African species of schistosomes by detection of specific DNA fragments from filtered urine samples; Rural health centres, communities and malaria case detection in Zambia using mobile telephones: a means to detect potential reservoirs of infection in unstable transmission conditions; Sensitivities and Specificities of Diagnostic Tests and Infection Prevalence of Schistosoma haematobium estimated from data on adults in villages north west of Accra, Ghana; PCR detection of Plasmodium falciparum in human urine and saliva samples and the Clinical Utility of squamous and transitional nuclear structure alterations induced by Schistosoma haematobium in chronical infected adults with bladder damage verified by ultrasound in Ghana.

Dr Shiff is currently working with colleagues in Argentina to improve the diagnosis of Strongyloides stercoralis by detection of DNA fragments in urine.

Dr Shiff initiated a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) in collaboration with five of his colleagues, to support science and scientific training in Zimbabwe at the Biomedical Research and Training Organisation (BRTI). The original vision of the BRTI in 1995, was for it to become a sustainable project administered by scientists and managers working principally within Africa. Since then, the BRTI has not just survived but has grown into a vibrant and strong Zimbabwean institution that has made a significant contribution to health and development.

Dr Shiff was twice President of the Rhodesia Scientific Association, a body that originated in 1896 and represented the wide range of scientists who contributed greatly to the development of local science. Due to his expertise, he holds a position within the World Health Organization (WHO) Expert Committee on Integrated Vector Control, and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Committee on DDT and its use against malaria.

Dr Shiff is a member of the Rhodes University Trust USA Board. His selfless character and appreciation of the institution are what makes Rhodes University proud to award him the Distinguished Alumni award.

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Tanya AcconeDesmond Low-Kum
Managing Principal
Diligent Controls

Desmond Low-Kum is an Operational Due Diligence (ODD) Consultant and Business Development professional in the alternatives investment industry. Previously Desmond was Director of Operational Risk Management and Compliance at Stanford Management Company (SMC), which was established to manage Stanford University's financial and investment real estate assets.

Desmond was responsible for planning, managing and conducting the operational risk management/due diligence reviews for both pre investment and post (ongoing) investments. He has over 35 years of experience working in private industry, public accounting, internal auditing and operational investment management.

Prior to joining SMC in December 2005, Desmond spent 16 years working at the University's Internal Audit and Institutional Compliance Department with responsibility for managing audits in a number of diverse areas such as SMC (Investment Management), DAPER (Stanford Athletics), SLAC (High Energy Physics Laboratory) and the University Controller's Office.

He joined the University's Internal Audit Department in November 1989, after working in internal audit in the S&L and mortgage banking industry in San Francisco, and public accounting (KPMG in Johannesburg, South Africa). Desmond qualified as a Chartered Accountant, a Certified Investments and Derivatives Auditor, an Associate of the Institute of Cost and Management Accountants, and a Certified Information Systems Auditor. Desmond has a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Rhodes University, South Africa, and a Bachelor of Accounting Science (Honors) from the University of South Africa.

Desmond is a past president (1998-1999) of the Silicon Valley Chapter of the Information Systems Audit and Control Association. He was a member of the Stanford Federal Credit Union supervisory committee (audit committee) for many years.

Desmond has been the Treasurer and a Trustee of the Rhodes University Trust (USA) since 2004.

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Guy WhiteGerry Son Kee
Financial Advisor
Raymond James Ltd.

Based in Toronto, Son Kee is a Financial Advisor with Raymond James, providing investment management and customized investment solutions for a diversified range of clients. He also works with business owners and consultants to maximize their "after-tax" returns on cash and investments. Son Kee graduated with a B.Comm from Rhodes University in 1973 and emigrated to Toronto in 1990 after holding a variety of professional accounting positions in Johannesburg, South Africa. He has been in the Financial Planning and retail brokerage industry for the past 17 years and has, since 2003 run his own independent brokerage practice in Mississauga. Gerry keeps in close touch with the SA Chinese Rhodes alumni in Toronto. Son Kee has taken the lead in organizing Rhodes alumni gatherings in Canada.

Son Kee attributes much of his success as a Financial Advisor to being a "people's" person and a community man at heart. He is a past director of the Canada South Africa Chamber of Business based in Toronto, and a Charter member of the Knights of Columbus chapter at his local church.

Son Kee is married to Eunice, formerly of Johannesburg and has two adult daughters, Lynn who is an Electrical Engineer and Brenda who is a budding Physiotherapist. His interests include family, golf, ballroom dancing, travel, reading, church and charity.

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Justine ManneringJustine Mannering
Managing Director, Consumer & Retail
Stifel

Justine is a Managing Director in Stifel’s Consumer & Retail Investment Banking Group responsible for coverage of the apparel, accessories & luxury sector. Justine has transaction experience across numerous consumer industry segments including juvenile products, beauty & personal care products, leisure, food, agriculture, and home products having worked in the US, UK and across Asia.

Justine joined Stifel from Alantra where she was Co-Head of Personal Care globally and US Managing Director covering Consumer. Prior to Alantra, she was Global Head of Consumer & Luxury at BDA Partners, a global boutique focused on cross-border deals with offices across Asia, US and Europe, and a director at DC Advisory Group (previously Close Brothers Corporate Finance) in London.

Justine has won a number of industry accolades including being named one of M&A Adviser “40 under 40” in 2013, Women of Influence in the Middle Market” by Mergers & Acquisitions magazine in 2018 and 2022 and she also received a “Top USA Women Dealmakers” award from Global M&A Network in. 2023

She is a founding Board Member & Investor in Exponent LLC, a New York-based networking organization established in 2017 focused on promoting women in finance in the middle market. Justine is also a board member of the US Trust of Starfish Greathearts Foundation, a South African based non-profit which focuses on supporting orphaned and vulnerable children in South Africa by working in partnership with community-based organizations.

Justine went to Victoria Gril’s High School in Grahamstown before completing a BCom and Postgraduate Diploma in Accounting at Rhodes University. She started her career in public accounting at KPMG in Cape Town and London. She also completed the program to qualify as a CFA Charterholder and qualified as a Chartered Accountant (South Africa)

Justine currently lives in Scarsdale, NY, with her husband, Jason, who she met at Rhodes University and their two teenage boys.

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Mark SimoncelliMark Simoncelli
Chief Revenue Officer


Mark has over 20 years of experience as an accomplished executive, management consultant, and Fortune 1000 strategic growth advisor. As Chief Revenue Officer and with a background spanning multiple industries and global geographies, Mark’s expertise in technology implementation, business process optimization, talent development, and business model transformation inspires his relentless focus on value creation for Mach49 and its clients.

Mark started his career at Accenture, focusing on large-scale technology implementation. He later worked directly with the Board of an international retailer on a comprehensive company-wide reorganization, laying the foundation for a significant increase in shareholder value in subsequent years.

Before joining Mach49, Mark was heavily involved in projects that centered on value creation, including a connected valve solution, telematics, and IoT solutions in manufacturing. This was the beginning of his love affair with wanting to build new lines of business that focused on value creation. Having already made big improvements in operations and reorganizations, Mark decided to turn his attention completely toward growth. Being an optimist and glass-half-full kind of person, he knew he wanted to do things that created value — for people, teams, and companies — through disruptive ideas.

While at Frost & Sullivan, Mark was responsible for establishing the global Growth Strategy and Implementation practice. He designed comprehensive strategy processes for a portfolio of over 80 key accounts across a number of industries, including automotive, healthcare, aerospace, and financial services. In addition to building and leading multidisciplinary teams, he delivered significant value to clients in the form of billions of dollars of growth opportunities. After 9 years at F&S, he became a Partner in the firm.

Mark is a firm believer in disruptive growth as a powerful way to unlock human potential, build ventures, connect networks, and ensure lasting transformation. His early experiences in retail also gave him a strong belief in the importance of sustainability — that it was not only possible, but critical to thread the needle of value creation with the delivery of sustainability goals. Mark knew he had to pursue both, and has relentlessly carried this forward ever since. He now uses his passion and expertise to drive success for Mach49 and its clients.

Outside of work, Mark is a family man through and through. He loves spending time with his wife and their three boys in Southern California, hitting the beach, mountain biking, and living a healthy lifestyle together. Mark is a keen swimmer, but his sons are talented water polo players and Mark is their number one fan. He even takes his passion to the announcer’s booth, where he’s a crowd favorite at the CDM "Sea Kings" home games. His life is a fantastic mix of work, family, and community, and he wouldn't want it any other way.

Mark holds a BS from Rhodes University.

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Guy WhiteSherwin Bryce-Pease
New York/US Correspondent
South African Broadcasting Corporation

Sherwin Bryce-Pease, 33, is a graduate of Rhodes University’s School of Journalism and Media Studies. He began his working career in marketing, as Rhodes University’s International Communications Liaison based in the United States. While there, he completed a comprehensive internship with GlobalFluency/Neale-May & Partners working in the global marketing and strategic communications agency’s New York and Palo Alto offices. After his return to South Africa in 2002, he took up a position in News with the SABC. He has been with the organization ever since – starting with Newsbreak in the Special News Services Division followed by a stint as Bulletin Writer and News Presenter on SAFM, the national English radio broadcaster. In 2005, Sherwin was appointed Insert Producer and Co-Anchor of SABC News’ Weekend Breakfast Show – Weekend Live. During the same period he was also the stand-in presenter on SABC 2’s Morning Live – the largest breakfast television show in South Africa. In March, 2008 Sherwin was appointed SABC U.S. Correspondent, based at the United Nations in New York. He covers the North American region for the broadcasting company. His interests include the arts, current affairs, reading and a variety of sports that include rugby (Blue Bulls fan), cricket, F1 auto racing, tennis and golf. He is an eloquent and entertaining public speaker. Highlights during his career include interviewing U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, South African Presidents Jacob Zuma, Kgalema Motlanthe and Thabo Mbeki, Chile's former President Michelle Bachelete, actor Morgan Freeman and Nobel laureates Nadine Gordimer and Shirin Ebadi among others.

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Guy WhiteSt. Claire Adriaan
Principal of Encore High School for the Visual and Performing Arts

St. Claire Adriaan is the Principal of Encore High School for the Visual and Performing Arts in Hesperia, California. He is also a co-founder of the Success Preparatory Academy charter school in New Orleans, Louisiana. Prior to co-founding Success Preparatory Academy, St. Claire Adriaan had a 17-year career in education. Growing up under the apartheid regime in South Africa, St. Claire attended the Dower College of Education where he received his diploma in elementary education. He then enrolled at The University of Port Elizabeth (now Nelson Mandela University) where he obtained his Bachelor of Arts in Secondary Education. He also holds two post-graduate degrees from the University of Port Elizabeth (NMU), a Bachelor of Arts (Honors) in Biblical and Religious Studies and Bachelor of Education. He also holds a Post Graduate Diploma from Rhodes University in Educational Leadership and Management. In 2020, St. Claire received a Master of Science Degree from The International Institute or Restorative Practices Graduate School in Restorative Practices. He is currently a candidate for the Education Leadership Masters Degree at Harvard University.

St. Claire trained teachers at Kagisanong College of Education in South Africa before coming to the United States in 1999. He was also Adjunct Professor in the School of Education at Dominican University, River Forest. St. Claire came to the United States in 1999 through the Visiting International Faculty and began teaching in North Carolina. Then he moved to Chicago to teach at Noble Street Charter School, one of the nation's highest performing high schools. He then moved to San Diego to teach at Kipp Adelante, where for two consecutive years (2005-06, 2006-07) his English Language Learner students were the highest scoring in math the entire San Diego County and in 2007 they were the highest scoring in the State of California. St. Claire also presents workshops for math teachers throughout the country.

After his work at KIPP, he moved to Cleveland to become the founding principal of Villaview Lighthouse Community School, where after just five months the school had the highest gains in math and second highest in reading on the Northwestern Evaluation Association (NWEA). During his teaching career in the United States he has been recognized for his many achievements: Disney Teacher Award Honoree — 2006, San Diego CW5 Dream Classroom winner- 2006, University of Kentucky, Teacher who made a difference — 2006 and 2007, North Carolina Wal-Mart teacher of the year (Fayetteville)-2002, VIF Cultural Educator of the year -2002. St. Claire's biography has also been included in Marquis Who's Who In America for 2 years in a row. He has commendations for exemplary teaching from the Mayor of San Diego, United States Congress, and the United States Senate./p>

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Tanya AcconeTanya Accone
Senior Adviser on Innovation,
UNICEF


Tanya Accone leads UNICEF’s work to scale up proven innovations in multiple countries around the world. Her work delivers on dreams, by supporting 224 countries to identify promising and innovative solutions and bring them to scale successfully, while building the change management culture and capability of others to do so. The scaling strategies she has designed have been applied successfully in 90 countries across a range of solutions, from youth-driven social innovation and entrepreneurship to empowerment platforms, technology solutions in digital health and real-time data, to normative work in policy development and risk management in social media, geospatial data and biometrics.

Accone's career has focused on helping international public and private sector organizations achieve their preferred futures by understanding how to amplify their impact through the convergence of innovation, people, systems and technology. During her career she has nurtured various innovation and technology for development initiatives, established and led UNICEF’s global human capital futures and analytics portfolio, spearheaded the development of Internet businesses and content portals throughout the African continent, was the Internet Editor of southern Africa's largest newspaper and worked at the Washington Post. Accone has a Journalism degree from Rhodes University, completed her MA in Public Communication at American University on a Fulbright Scholarship, and holds an MS in Studies of the Future in strategic foresight and planning, from the University of Houston-Clear Lake.

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Trevor HastieTrevor Hastie
John A. Overdeck Professor,
Professor Statistics Department and Biomedical Data Science Department,
Stanford University, California


Hastie is an applied statistician, and has coauthored seven major books and over 200 research papers in this area. His research focuses on applications in bioinformatics, genomics and data-science. His book “Elements of Statistical Learning” (Springer, Second Edition 2009), is a best-seller and has become an industry standard in Machine Learning and Data Science. Hastie received his B.Sc (hons) from Rhodes in 1976, and was awarded the Foundation and National scholarships. After working in medical research in South Africa and the UK for 4 years, he earned his Ph.D in Statistics from Stanford University in 1984. He then spent 9 years in the data-analysis research group at AT&T Bell laboratories, where he was a co-developer of the increasingly popular S language for data science used by the R community. In 1994 he joined the statistics faculty at Stanford University, where he teaches and advises graduate students. He has served on the scientific advisory boards of more than 20 Silicon Valley hi-tech startups, and is currently a senior advisor at the Palo Alto Blackrock AI Lab. In 2015 he received the Distinguished Old Rhodian Award, and in 2018 was elected to the US National Academy of Science.

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Q+A WITH
LUYANDA BHEYILE,

Manager of Alumni Relations at Rhodes University.

How is Rhodes handling and prioritizing the growing number of financial aid requests from students?

  • Sound academic performance
  • Proven financial need
  • Willingness to make a minimal financial commitment to the University to pay fees
  • Mostly South African citizens
  • Signing of the acknowledgement of debt in instances where the family is unable to settle fees in full by the end of the academic year. This is done to ensure that academically sound students are permitted to progress to the next academic level so that the University is able to collect the funds once they have graduated and secured permanent employment.

Download full interview PDF

 
 
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