Sam is a trained economist specialising in understanding the complexities of the South African economy. Prior to joining the EICN, Sam spent time in both the public and private sector, first as an economist within the Economic Policy division of the National Treasury, and then as a consulting economist at Econometrix, and Deloitte. During his time in private sector, Sam specialised in analysing events and government policies to dilute these into constructing business strategies. Sam also spent time in Switzerland as an economist for airline industry body IATA. Sam holds a masters degree in economics from Stellenbosch University, and has studied further at the Insitute for Social Studies in The Hague, the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the Levy Economics Insitute of Bard College in New York State.

Busisiwe Mavuso is a Chartered Certified Accountant, CCA, qualified with Association of Certified Chartered Accountants (ACCA –UK) and holds a Master’s Degree in Business Leadership, a Postgraduate Qualification in Management from GIBS and a B. Compt in Accounting from the University of South Africa (UNISA).

She is the Chief Executive Officer at Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) and a Non-Executive Director on the Board of ESKOM; Business Unity South Africa (BUSA); and serves on the Human Resources Development Council (HRDC), the Advisory Committee of the Local Government Ethical Leadership Initiative (LGELI), The Alcohol Industry Advisory Council (TAIAC) and the Social Justice Council. Furthermore, Busi is a Visiting Adjunct Professor at the Wits Business School (WBS).

She was awarded the ‘2020 Influencer of Influencers Award’ by the Africa Brand Summit in October 2020 and was named second runner up for ‘Businessperson of the Year’ by Daily Maverick in 2021.

Dr Martyn Davies is the Managing Director of Emerging Markets & Africa at Deloitte and is the Dean of Deloitte’s Alchemy School of Management. Martyn is also the Africa Automotive Industry Leader of the Firm. Over his career, he has been a trusted advisor to executives at a large array of multinational firms on their market entry & engagement strategies in emerging markets and Africa. He has also conducted a large amount of advisory work on behalf of the public sector having advised a number of governments in numerous regions.

He is a Visiting Professor at IE Business School, Madrid, Spain and is a Non-Executive Director of the NEPAD Business Foundation.Martyn has been educated at Wits University, Yonsei (Seoul) Harvard, Yale and Oxford Universities.

Bonga joined BDO as CEO in May 2022 taking over from Mark Stewart at the end of his term. He is a member of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA), Advancement of Black Accountants of Southern Africa (ABASA), Institute of Directors of South Africa (IODSA) and the Black Management Forum (BMF).

Prior to joining BDO, he held various senior executive and leadership roles at AlexForbes for almost 13 years, which includes; Head of Institutional Cluster Businesses, Managing Director/Executive of Actuarial Consulting Solutions & AF Group Public Sector Divisions, CEO of Alex Forbes Emerging Markets (Pty)Ltd and recently, AF Group Executive of Market Development Division.

As a qualified CA(SA), Mokoena spent much of his career as an internal auditor at Nedcor Bank Limited, Metrorail and Transnet before moving on to Old Mutual as an Industry leader in 2005 within Old Mutual Corporate Division. He then joined and worked at Eskom Pension and Provident Fund (EPPF) as its Chief Executive and Principal Officer for almost 2 years during 2008 and the better part of 2009.

He has extensive experience in both the public and private sector, his sector experience also includes; transport, financial services, investment and the energy sector.