Growth-focused, tactical leader with expertise spanning sales, lead generation, market dynamics, regulatory frameworks, requirements assessment, data analysis, marketing, consulting, strategic planning, problem solving, process improvement, stakeholder engagement, end-to-end client relationship management, operations management, team leadership, training, performance assessment, and project management. Exceptionally dedicated professional with keen interpersonal, communication, and organizational skills, as well as negotiation, budget management, policy management, and resource allocation expertise.

He teaches, researches, and writes in the areas of human rights, law, and economic and legal sociology, having published widely and supervised numerous dissertations. His current research interests are in the legal profession, competition law & economic regulation, the future of legal identity, and sociolegal studies in Africa. He has served on a number of editorial committees and boards including those of the South African Journal on Human Rights, Law & Society Review, and Law & Policy. He holds a Phd in sociology from Yale University and law degrees from Columbia (JD) and Wits (LLB). He served as Head of the Wits Law School from 2010 to 2013 and as Director of the Mandela Institute at Wits from 2005 to 2007. He has served as an Acting Judge on the High Court of South Africa (Gauteng). His most recent book publication is From Prohibited Immigrants to Citizens: The Origins of Citizenship and Nationality in South Africa (UCT, 2017).

Lesala is an Advocate of the High Court, South Africa and has lectured at the South African Law Society’s School for Legal Practice since 2004. He has presented lectures at the University of Pretoria’s Good Governance Academy (co-hosted by the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria [winner of the 2006 UNESCO Prize for Human Rights Education] & the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, University of Oslo) in 2008 and facilitated numerous Succession Planning workshops. His main research areas are African customary law, religious law, legal pluralism, international law and international humanitarian law. He has authored and co-authored books in legal pluralism.

He completed his articles in the Western Cape, and was admitted as an attorney in March 1988. He took up a Fulbright scholarship at New York University where he did an LLM focusing on International Human Rights law. During this time he interned at various law firms. He returned to South Africa and took up employment with the Legal Resources Centre in Johannesburg in March 1990 where he has worked for 4 years before transferring to the Durban office, where he remained until his appointment to the High Court bench in June 2014. As the Director of the Durban office for more than 12 years, he has served on the Executive Committee of the LRC. Since his appointment to the bench, he has been invited to serve on the Board of the Legal Resources Trust, which oversees the work of the LRC. He is a dedicated activist who still retains contact with the various community organizations with whom he has worked with over the years.

In 2015, Ms Sooka served as a Member of the Independent Review Panel for Central African Republic (CAR) appointed by the UN Secretary General in June 2015, which investigated Allegations of Sexual Abuse by Foreign Military Forces in the Central African Republic as well as the UN Response to the Allegations. In July 2010, Ms Sooka was appointed by the Secretary-General to serve as a member of the Panel of Experts advising the Secretary-General on Accountability for War Crimes in Sri Lanka. In the years 2000-2019, Yasmin Sooka was the Executive Director of the Foundation for Human Rights in South Africa, an independent non-profit Foundation established in 1996 by President Mandela’s government and the European Union, to address the legacy of apartheid and to support the building of a human rights culture in South Africa. She also served as a Commissioner on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission from 1996 to March 2003. She was also appointed by Mary Robinson as one if three independent UN Commissioners on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Sierra Leone between 2002 and 2004. She also held the post of the Inaugural Soros Chair at School of Public Policy-Budapest in the fall of 2015 where she lectured on transitional justice. Ms Sooka also served as an advisory member of the UN Global Study on Resolution 1325 in 2015. She is a Board member of Justice Rapid Response (JRR) and is currently a member of the Independent Advisory Review Panel for UNICEF on its review of the Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) polices.

Prior to his ED leadership role, Zaid Kimmie held a sequence of leadership roles at FHR in knowledge management, program leadership, institutional planning, monitoring and evaluation, and research over a period of 10 years. He held directorate roles at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), and the Community Agency for Social Enquiry (CASE) before this. Zaid’s career has been marked by a dedication to human rights with an emphasis on strategy, research and he continues to teach graduate-level courses in Research Methodology and Statistics. Kimmie’s expertise has included a role as a technical expert for the Council for Medical Schemes Inquiry, investigating racial profiling by medical aid schemes. He has an extensive list of publications on an array of topics.