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Contact Info:
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 the 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. Neale-May is also 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 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.

He is also the co-founder and managing partner of The SABLE Accelerator (South African Business Link to Experts), a trusted knowledge network of global South Africans providing mentoring and consulting services to South African companies, entrepreneurs and institutions seeking to fund or commercialize innovation, as well as enter, grow, and partner in worldwide markets. See www.sablenetwork.com.

Previously, Neale-May held senior positions with marketing, promotions and PR agencies, such as Neale-May & Partners, Ogilvy & Mather and Intercity Publicity, in Silicon Valley, New York, London and Los Angeles. During his 40 years as an international marketing and brand strategist, Neale-May has consulted with over 300 leading multi-nationals, new venture starts and emerging growth companies.

Neale-May previously served for 18 years on the board of directors of Travelzoo (NASDAQ: TZOO). He also chairs the Rhodes University Trust in the USA and is a member of the university's board of governors in South Africa.

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Guy WhiteAdriane Parsons
Attorney

Adriane attended Rhodes from 1987 to 1991 and graduated with a BA LLB. She is licensed to practice law in South Africa, California, Colorado and Arizona. After completing her articles in Cape Town, she worked as in-house council to the Cape Town City Council during South Africa's transition to democracy. After completing an LL.M in constitutional law at Wits in 1998, she moved with her husband to the United States. She was appointed a Deputy District Attorney in Colorado, where she practiced as an appellate attorney and prosecutor in District Court. She now lives in Arizona, where she is in private practice with Munger Chadwick PLC, focusing on business law, civil litigation and business immigration. She is married to David Parsons, a Zimbabwean and Old Andrean, and has two children, Finlay and Lucy. They live in Tucson, Arizona.

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Guy WhiteBryony Winn,
President
Anthem Health Solutions

As President of Anthem Health Solutions, Bryony Winn is responsible for ensuring that the more than 44 million consumers in Anthem’s family of health plans have access to high-quality, affordable care. Bryony is accountable for total cost of care, clinical strategy, building and managing relationships with care providers, advanced analytics, and more. Previously, Bryony was Anthem’s Chief Strategy Officer, responsible for accelerating enterprise strategy for sustained growth.

Since joining Anthem in 2020 from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina where she was Head of Strategy and Innovation, Bryony has developed strategic initiatives that determine which capabilities to bring to Anthem’s members and how the company can best fulfill its mission of improving lives and communities. Improving the impact of Anthem’s operations, she was a driving force behind the inclusion of community health and social drivers of health (e.g., food insecurity, health equity) into the core business strategy.

Outside of work, Bryony is involved with leading a variety of health-related institutions. In 2021, she joined the Fast Company Impact Council and was recognized as one of Fortune’s 40 under 40 and Business Insider’s 30 under 40 transforming healthcare. In 2019, Modern Healthcare named Bryony one of the nation’s Top 25 Emerging Leaders, and she was one of 127 people in the world named to the Forum of Young Global Leaders by the World Economic Forum.

Bryony was awarded a Master of Philosophy in international development from the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, where she was a Rhodes Scholar. She is a wife in a dual-career household and mom to three young children. She resides in Indianapolis, Indiana with her family.

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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 WhiteCedric G. Tyler
Co-Founder, BusinessGenetics & xBML Innovations

Cedric is a leading, global expert in the fields of Business Modeling, Business Process and Information Technology. He began his career with IBM in the IT industry. He spent many years in this field and also worked on cutting edge technologies in an Applied Research capacity for IBM at IBM's showcase development facility (RESPOND) in the U.K. Subsequently, Cedric founded INFOMET (Pty) LTD and Infolab, two international companies specializing in the business-to-information technology interface. These companies were acquired by IBM in the early 1990's.

Cedric is the principle inventor of the breakthrough xBML™ (eXtended Business Modeling Language) methodology, a rule-based, synoptic and formal language for describing business. This approach is hailed by leading Analysts as potentially "industry changing" and "unique and one of a kind" — Gartner®, 2007. xBML has also been hailed as the successor to classical 20th century process maps. The approach provides a unique capability to develop and leverage business models across a multitude of corporate initiatives, ranging from business improvement/optimization, business requirements definition, Sarbanes-Oxley and other regulatory compliance, to outsourcing, mergers and acquisitions. Cedric is a principle of BusinessGenetics, Inc. an international organization that provides training and professional services and serves on the board of xBML Innovations, which provides a comprehensive xBML software solution suite and Affinity Solutions.

Cedric has recently published a book, "Business Genetics: A Business Management Tool for 21st Century Commerce" (Wiley 2007), a book that challenges and confronts mainstream thinking and theories, and introduces a revolutionary, unique approach to foundationally rethinking the manner in which we describe, plan and improve business. Cedric and his company have consulted to and advised many leading Fortune corporations and the federal government.He holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree with Economics and Business Administration majors (Rhodes University) and has served as an adjunct professor at the Daniels College of business (executive MBA program).

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

Shiff serves as an Associate Professor at John’s Hopkins within the Molecular Microbiology and Immunology Department. His main research interests are in the study of tropical parasitic diseases, particularly schisosomiasis and malaria under African conditions. In this capacity, he also serves as the PI and lead scientist running the Malaria Institute at Macha, Zambia. This functions as a core facility for the Research community at Johns Hopkins University, with a focus on field research. A South-African native, he has successfully championed an environmental, Africa-specific model for the west’s response to parasitic diseases in the continent of his birth. 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. He received his Master of Science and PhD in Zoology at Rhodes University.

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Tanya AcconeDesmond Low-Kum
Senior Manager of Operational Risk Management
Stanford Management Company (SMC)


Desmond Low-Kum is Senior Manager 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 is responsible for planning, managing and conducting the operational risk management/due diligence reviews for both pre investment and post (ongoing) investments. He has over 25 years of experience working in private industry, public accounting, internal auditing and operational investment management. Currently serves as the backup to the SMC Business Resumption Planning (BRP) Manager. In addition, during the course of conducting operational risk management reviews of managers, Desmond reviews many BRP plans developed and implemented by the managers.

Prior to joining SMC, 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. He has been a member of the Stanford Federal Credit Union supervisory committee (audit committee) since 1997.

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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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Mark SimoncelliMark Simoncelli
Global Vice President: Growth Implementation
Solutions
, Frost & Sullivan


Mark is a seasoned Management Consultant and Senior Executive with a specific focus on Business Growth having led over 100 Strategy and Implementation projects across all geographic regions and most core industry segments. Mark is also recognized as a thought leader in Digital Transformation with a particular focus in helping companies monetize digital products and services. Mark has twice been awarded as the Deal Maker of the Year (2013 & 2014) for M&A transactions. During his career Mark has helped Fortune 500 companies generate and realize multimillion dollar opportunities and has built a global consulting practice. As a Rhodes alum, he proudly flies the banner globally in his various interactions and partnerships. A resident of California with his beautiful wife Bronwyn and beloved three sons; Camren, Nathan and Jedd. Mark has been blessed to have travelled the world with work to 52 Countries and 20 States within the US and still counting. Extremely passionate about the topic of Growth (Industry, Business, Team and Individual) and the multifaceted levels of enabling successful business outcomes. His educational grounding at Rhodes has certainly helped lay the foundation for forecasting and understanding trends coupled with the ability to systematically implement solutions in response to these opportunities.

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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
Co-Founder
Success Preparatory Academy

Prior to co-founding Success Preparatory Academy, St. Claire Adriaan, has had a seventeen-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 where he obtained his Bachelors of Arts in Secondary Education. He also holds two post graduate degrees from the University of Port Elizabeth, 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.

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 tremendous 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.

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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
Professor and Chairman
Statistics Department,
Stanford University, California


Hastie is an applied statistician, and has coauthored three major books and over 100 research papers in this area. His research focuses on bioinformatics, genomics and data-mining. The most recent book, “Elements of Statistical Learning” (Springer, 2001), is a best-seller and has become an industry standard in data mining. 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 analysis used by the Splus/R communities. In 1994 he joined the statistics faculty at Stanford University, where he teaches and advises graduate students. He serves on the scientific advisory boards of eight Silicon Valley hi-tech startups.

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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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