Welcome
The Good Governance Academy is a non-profit organisation that collaborates globally to share information on critical business issues as a public good.
A strong alignment with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal #17 (Collaboration) and SDG #4 (Quality Education) is intended. Issues include: outcomes-based governance; conscious corporate leadership; value creation in a sustainable manner; integrated thinking and effective corporate reporting including sustainability reporting and integrated reporting.
The Good Governance Academy collaborates with organisations around the world.
Our Support Member Network collaborates to make global thought leadership on critical business issues accessible to their members and networks.
Our Community
We are an inclusive online community and our thirst for learning contributes positively to global good governance awareness and practice.
- Access our Go Govern community platform
- Videos and media from all past events
- Curated content with a powerful search engine
- Personalized invitations to global events
- Community updates and notifications
Global experts
interacting online at our events
Curated content
endorsed training, media and research
Certificates
for continual
development
Networking
directors, accountants and other professionals
Our Activities
We host two Colloquia a year and publish a memorandum summarizing the colloquium thereafter. We also hosts many other events such as fireside chats and roundtables with global thought leaders and practical workshops. Many of these events are held in collaboration with one or more of our support members.
The Good Governance Academy endorses courses to ensure high quality and applicability. These can be purchased using the links provided.
Showcase webinars are held to enable attendees to directly engage directly with the trainers. These resources are accessible on the training page.
Our Book Shelf lists some recommended reading. These books available for purchase using the links provided. Additional free resources are available on the community portal. Book Lounge events with the author(s) provide insights into the content beyond the words and are recorded and available on the event pages.
The ESG Exchange is a global collaboration of sustainability reporting standard setters, regulators, professional associations, corporates and educators deriving How-To Playbooks to equip organizations to embed sustainability reporting capabilities in their organizations. Join here
Global collaboration on research in good governance and critical business issues and other interesting discussion opportunities.
- News: keep in touch with calls for papers and upcoming academic conferences
- Portfolio: a collection of initiatives providing a global perspective on research activities
- Presentations: informal events to share findings and allow for attendee engagement
- Global Summit: an annual global business schools summit
- Journal: In progress - Join our mailing list to stay updated
- Join the mailing list here
Our Board of Directors
Prof. Mervyn King
Founding Patron
Alan Johnson
Board Chair
Carolynn Chalmers
Chief Executive Officer
Paul Druckman
Non-Executive Director
Owen Skae
Non-Executive Director
Veronica Poole
Non-Executive Director
Piet Naudé
Non-Executive Director
Andrew Corbett-Nolan
Non-Executive Director
Message from our Patron, Professor Mervyn King
Over the last three decades I have been privileged to chair the Eminent Persons Group at the United Nations on Governance and Oversight, the Global Reporting Initiative, the International Integrated Reporting Council (now part of the IFRS Foundation), the Integrated Reporting Committee of South Africa and the King Committee on Corporate Governance. I have also sat on corporate governance advisory boards in the Far East and at the World Bank.
I record the above not out of self-praise but to indicate that because of my international appointments I have associations with universities, business schools, professional bodies and others around the world. It is these associations which I have voluntarily given to the GGA to act as a catalyst to share governance and business science matters of extreme public interest on a collaborative basis.
Professor Mervyn King, Patron and Founder of the Good Governance Academy
Get in touch
Sponsors
+27 11 717 3300
info@goodgovernance.academy
Wits Business School, 2 St Davids Pl, St Andrew Rd, Parktown,
Johannesburg, 2193, South Africa
Prof. Mervyn King
Patron, Good Governance Academy
Mervyn King is a Senior Counsel, former Judge of the Supreme Court of South Africa, and designated Chartered Director (South Africa). He is Professor Extraordinaire at the University of South Africa, Honorary Professor at the Universities of Pretoria and Cape Town, and a Visiting Professor at Rhodes University. He has honorary Doctorates from Wits University and Stellenbosch University in South Africa, Leeds University in the UK, and Deakin University in Australia.
Mervyn is honorary fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales; the Institute of Internal Auditors of the UK; the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants; the Certified Public Accountants of Australia; the Chartered Institute of Public Relations of the UK, and the Chartered Secretaries and Administrators.
Mervyn is Chair Emeritus of the King Committee on Corporate Governance in South Africa, as well as of the Value Reporting Foundation (incorporating the International Integrated Reporting Council and SASB) and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). He has received Lifetime Achievement Awards for promoting quality corporate governance globally, from several institutions.
Mervyn chairs the Good Law Foundation and has chaired the United Nations Committee of Eminent persons on Governance and Oversight. He is a member of the Private Sector Advisory Group to the World Bank on Corporate Governance and of the ICC Court of Arbitration in Paris. Mervyn currently chairs the African Integrated Reporting Council and the Integrated Reporting Committee of South Africa and is Patron of the Good Governance Academy.
Mervyn has been a chair, director and chief executive of several companies listed on the London, Luxembourg and Johannesburg Stock Exchanges. He has consulted, advised and spoken on legal, business, advertising, sustainability and corporate governance issues in over 60 countries and has received many awards from international bodies around the world including the World Federation of Stock Exchanges and the International Federation of Accountants.
He is the author of many books on governance, sustainability and reporting, the latest being “The Healthy Company.”
Alan Johnson
Chair of the Good Governance Academy
Alan Johnson is the immediate past President of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC). He previously served as Deputy President from 2018-2020 and had been a board member since November 2015. He was nominated to the IFAC board by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA).
On January 1, 2021, Alan was appointed a non-executive director and member of the Audit and the Succession & Appointments Committees of Imperial Brands plc, a FTSE 100 company in the UK.
Alan is a former non-executive Director of Jerónimo Martins SGPS, S.A., a food retailer with operations in Portugal, Poland, and Colombia, having completed his board mandate in 2016.
He is currently the independent chairman of the company’s Internal Control Committee. Previously he was Chief Financial Officer of Jerónimo Martins from 2012 to 2014.
Between 2005 and 2011 Alan served as Chief Audit Executive for the Unilever Group. He also served as Chief Financial Officer of Unilever’s Global Foods businesses and worked for Unilever for 35 years in various finance positions in Africa, Europe and Latin America.
Mr. Johnson was a member of the IFAC Professional Accountants in Business Committee between 2011 and 2015, a member of the ACCA’s Market Oversight Committee between 2006 and 2012 and chair of the ACCA Accountants for Business Global Forum until 2018. Alan was a member of the board of Gildat Strauss Israel between 2003 and 2004.
Mr. Johnson is the chair of the board of governors of St. Julian’s School in Portugal and chairs its Finance & Bursaries Committees.
In October 2016 he was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the International Valuation Standards Council and chairs its audit committee.
Between July 2018 and September 2020 he was a non-executive director of the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and chaired its Audit & Risk Assurance Committee.
Carolynn Chalmers
Chief Executive Officer, Good Governance Academy
Carolynn Chalmers is the Chief Executive Officer of Professor Mervyn King’s Good Governance Academy and its initiative, The ESG Exchange. She has edited two international standards: ISO 37000:2021 – Governance of organizations – Guidance and its associated Governance Maturity Model, ISO 37004:2023.
Carolynn makes corporate dreams come true, assisting leaders and leadership teams in how to create value for their organisations. She makes use of her expertise and experience in corporate governance, organizational strategy, Digital Transformation, and IT to do so.
Carolynn is an Independent Committee Member of South Africa’s largest private Pension Fund, the Eskom Pension and Provident Fund, and recently retired as Independent Committee member of several board committees for the Government Employee Medical Scheme. Carolynn has extensive management, assurance and governance experience and has held various Executive roles for international, listed, private and public organisations across many industries.
Carolynn is best known for her successes in establishing governance frameworks, and designing and the leading large, complex initiatives that can result. She attributes this success to the application of good governance principles. She shares her insights on her 2 LinkedIn Groups – Applying King IV and Corporate Governance Institute.
Paul Druckman
Chairman, World Benchmarking Alliance
A passionate global leader in capital market reform – from corporate governance to reporting & measurement; to sustainability.
He is well known and respected in business, regulation and in the accounting profession worldwide. Following an entrepreneurial career in the accountancy software industry, He has operated as a non‐executive chairman and director for companies in a variety of sectors.
He is Chairman of the World Benchmarking Alliance which is building a movement to measure and incentivise business impact towards a sustainable future that works for everyone through free and transparent benchmarks and rankings
In the accounting profession his highlights include being President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales; being on the City Takeover Panel; and as a Board member of the UK regulator, the Financial Reporting Council. The FRC non-executive role was over 2 separate terms, including the post Enron era and then again until 2019. He also chaired the FRC’s Corporate Reporting Council which sets UK accounting standards and currently is chairing a major FRC project on the Future of Corporate Reporting.
In the field of sustainability, a highlight was chairing HRH The Prince of Wales Accounting for Sustainability Project (A4S) Executive Board for many years, whilst his last full-time role was at the International Integrated Reporting Council where he helped create and then led the team as CEO for five years from inception.
He has a variety of other roles currently – from chairing Clear Insurance; to being a Board member of the Shift Project, which brings respect for human rights to business via the UN Guiding Principles; to being a Board member of SASB (Sustainability Accounting Standards Board).
Mr. Druckman is an Ambassador for A4S and an Honorary Professor at Durham Business School.
Owen Skae
Director at Rhodes Business School
Owen Skae is an Associate Professor and was appointed Director: Rhodes Business School with effect from 1 January 2010 after extensive experience in the consulting arena, the private sector, academia and most latterly an international organization.
Owen studied at Rhodes University from 1983 to 1988, where he completed his undergraduate studies and read for an M.Com in the Department of Management. Immediately thereafter he read for an MBA degree at Durham University in England.
He is formerly an Associate Professor in Managerial Accounting & Finance at the School of Accounting at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, where he taught from 1996 to 2006. Most recently he worked for the Geneva based, International Trade Centre, the joint agency of the World Trade Organization and the United Nations, its main goal being to help developing countries achieve sustainable human development through exports. In this former capacity, he advised numerous countries on priorities for raising overall levels of competitiveness and assisting in the formulation of national and sector export strategies.
His areas of interest are strategic management, managerial accounting and finance and he also has a strong research background in business linkages and small business development.
Veronica Poole
Deloitte Global IFRS and corporate reporting leader
Veronica is a vice chair of Deloitte UK, Global IFRS and Corporate Reporting leader and NSE Head of Accounting and Corporate Reporting.
She leads Deloitte’s contributions to the WEF IBC Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics, and has facilitated the work of the leading sustainability standard-setters to develop a prototype climate standard, helped launch the UK Directors’ Climate Forum—Chapter Zero, and spearheaded Deloitte’s partnership with the A4S Finance for the Future Awards.
She is a member of the UK Accounting Council, Chair of the Advisory Group Financial Reporting Committee and a former member of the Financial Reporting Advisory Board to HM Treasury.
Her current priorities include influencing and driving change in the accounting and corporate reporting and in the accounting profession, including reporting of ESG and climate-related financial and business risks. She works with standard-setters, policy makers, regulators and professional bodies to advance the goal of better corporate reporting.
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Privacy Policy
Link to the policy: GGA Privacy Policy 2021
The Good Governance Academy (“GGA”) strives for transparency and trust when it comes to protecting your privacy and we aim to clearly explain how we collect and process your information.
It’s important to us that you should enjoy using our products, services and website(s) without compromising your privacy in any way. The policy outlines how we collect and use different types of personal and behavioural information, and the reasons for doing so. You have the right to access, change or delete your personal information at any time and you can find out more about this and your rights by contacting the GGA, clicking on the “CONTACT” menu item or using the details at the bottom of the page.
The policy applies to “users” (or “you”) of the GGA website(s) or any GGA product or service; that is anyone attending, registering or interacting with any product or service from the GGA. This includes event attendees, participants, registrants, website users, app users and the like.
Our policies are updated from time-to-time. Please refer back regularly to keep yourself updated.