Litnet

Dr Thabane Vincent Maphai, BA (Hons), MA, PhD has an unusual and distinguished career in academia, the private sector and public service. 

He is currently board chair of Sibanye-Stillwater, Discovery Insure, Discovery Life and Invest as well as Stadio Holdings. Until 30 June 2018, when he retired from full-time work after 48 years, he was a visiting professor at Williams College in Massachusetts. Before then, he was the corporate affairs and transformation director at The South African Breweries Limited for 10 years. Prior to this, he was chairman of BHP Billiton Ltd South Africa for five years. He has also been involved in various public policy projects and roles, including the National Planning Commission, the Presidential Review Commission (chair) and the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC).

He served on the councils of the University of KwaZulu-Natal (chair) and the University of South Africa (Unisa). He served on the National Planning Commission and the Presidential Remuneration Review Commission, which investigated salaries of public servants. In an academic career spanning two decades, he studied and taught at various universities. He was professor extraordinaire in the Department of Political Science at Unisa and holds the same position at the University of Johannesburg.

He held fellowships at Harvard University (1988), Princeton University (1989) and Stanford University (1995). From 1991 to 1994, he was associate professor and head of the Political Science Department at the University of the Western Cape. He also served as a research executive director of social dynamics for the Human Sciences Research Council for three years.

He graduated from Unisa with a BA degree in 1975. He then studied at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, where he completed a bachelor of philosophy cum laude in 1976 and a master’s degree in philosophy magna cum laude in 1978.

Maphai holds a PhD from the University of Natal (1991) and an honours degree in international politics from Unisa. He also completed an advanced management programme at Harvard University.

He was born in the city centre of Pretoria, where he spent the first three years of his life. From there, his family was forcibly removed to Atteridgeville, where he grew up and studied until 1969 when he matriculated.