New Non-executive Director appointed

28/08/2018

Dr Jeya Wilson, an internationally recognised authority on development and governance, has been appointed as an independent non-executive director on the board of Adam Smith International.

Jeya brings a wealth of experience as a leader, practitioner, author, expert adviser, and board director. She has worked with many organisations that promote development and has lived in countries from Samoa and Sri Lanka to Nigeria and South Africa as well as New Zealand, Germany, Switzerland, the UK and USA.

She is currently a director on the board of the Africa Initiative for Governance, the start-up where she was founding CEO. AIG is a private-public partnership to attract, inspire and support future leaders of the public sector in Africa, starting with Nigeria and Ghana.

Also in her current portfolio of board roles, Jeya is vice-chair of the board of Fairtrade International, which sets standards and connects fair trade producers in developing countries with buyers around the world.

She is chair of the independent expert oversight advisory committee of the World Health Organisation (WHO), and is Strategy and Business Adviser to the Global Institute on Water, Environment & Health. She previously was an independent member of the audit and ethics committee of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. She is independent governor of Northumbria University.

Jeya also brings significant business acumen. For five years she was CEO of the Chamber of Commerce in Durban South Africa and she has been executive director and adjunct professor of the International MBA at the University of Geneva. She was also director in the administrations of the University of KwaZulu-Natal and Durban University of Technology.

“Jeya will bring incredible insight into the opportunities and obstacles of developing economies, along with great expertise in corporate governance,” said Acting Chair Rod Slee.

Jeya’s doctorate in international relations is from Oxford University where she was president of the Oxford Union. She obtained her BA from Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand.

Jeya takes up her role as an independent non-executive director immediately, and she will serve on the audit committee of the board. With her appointment, the ASI board has a majority of non-executive directors.