African Phoenix said Isaac Shongwe has resigned as its chairman and an independent non-executive director of the board.
The company said it has commenced the process to appoint a new chairman of the board.
Mr. Isaac Shongwe serves as Executive Director of Barloworld Logistics Africa (Pty) Ltd. Mr. Shongwe is Founding Partner of Letsema Holdings Pty Ltd., and serves as its Managing Director and Chairman. After spending three years with Monitor Consulting Company in South Africa, he founded the Letsema Group with the purpose of bridging the gap between black and white businesses in the “new“ South African environment. In 1996, he founded Letsema Consulting.
He is the Co-Founder and Chairman of the African Leadership Initiative, which is part of the Aspen Global Leadership Network and is focused on the development of effective, values-based, community-spirited leaders in Africa. He served as Chief Executive Officer of Barloworld Logistics, a subsidiary of Barloworld with global operations. He joined Barloworld in 2005 as a result of a transaction involving the purchase of a stake in a subsidiary, Barloworld Logistics Africa Proprietary Limited.
He founded the Young African Leadership Initiative to focus on leadership development of fellows between the ages of 25 and 35. His own passion for leadership began early in his career when he was made a 21st Century Trust Fellow and was named as a World Economic Forum Global Leader of Tomorrow in 1996. Mr. Shongwe has done extensive strategic consulting assignments both in the private and the public sector. He advises the Department of Trade and Industry on how to attract fixed investments into South Africa.
Mr. Shongwe serves as Chairman of Rural Housing Finance, an NGO that finances low-cost housing in the rural areas of South Africa. He also chairs the Maths Centre for Primary Teachers, an NGO focusing on upgrading teaching skills at a primary level. Given the importance that Mr. Shongwe places on sound education, he has played a part in establishing a higher education institution whose vision is “to develop a fully replicable higher education model relevant for developing nations which allows for extremely low-cost, relevant, practical, technology-based, main-scale higher education“.
He is benefited from the Oxford education he received as a result of his Rhodes scholarship, he has worked for the last eight years as assistant general secretary to the Rhodes Trust in Southern Africa to transform the scholarship. While at Wesleyan Mr. Shongwe participated actively in student politics and in sports. He has been the Non-Executive Chairman at African Bank Investments Limited since December 14, 2016. He has been Non Executive Director of African Bank Investments Limited since September 21, 2016 and has been its Lead Independent Non-Executive Director since October 31, 2016.
Mr. Shongwe serves as Trustee at Wesleyan University and Aspen Institute, The. He also serves as Chairman of the Open Society Foundation for South Africa and the Wits Business School Advisory Board. He serves on the board of the Aspen Institute and is a Henry Crown Fellow.
He was educated at Wesleyan University, a liberal arts college in Connecticut USA and Oxford University in the UK where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar and obtained an M.Phil in Management Studies.
