The Corporate Revolutionary

Corporate failures and their impact on governance guidance

  • 17 October 2024

This fireside chat between Professor Mervyn King and author, David Williams, explores the man behin this book.

Unfortunately David was called away at short notice. Carolynn Chalmers stepped in for David.

‘This is an excellent book written by a first-class renowned journalist and broadcaster about a truly remarkable man.’
Alan Johnson Immediate-past President, International Federation of Accountants

Background information

Mervyn King, known as the guru of corporate governance and sustainability, has transformed the global business landscape. In this authorised biography, best-selling author DAVID WILLIAMS recounts the extraordinary life story of a South African visionary.

 

Join this webinar as they delve into the profound effects that corporate collapses have on governance frameworks and policies. Mervyn King, a governance expert, business leader, and former judge, will guide us in how major corporate failures highlight gaps in corporate governance, and how this has resulted in new regulatory standards and best practices aimed at preventing similar events.

More about the guests

30/03/2021 Wits Business school
David Williams

+27 11 717 3300
info@goodgovernance.academy

Wits Business School, 2 St Davids Pl, St Andrew Rd, Parktown, 

Johannesburg, 2193, South Africa

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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.

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.”

David Williams

Leading financial journalist, broadcaster, teacher, and author.

David was educated at King Edward VII School in Johannesburg and Wits University, where his BA majors were History, English and Political Science. He also completed the Higher Diploma in Education (postgraduate).


Between 2003 and 2018 David served as Senior Anchor and interviewer on BDTV (formerly Summit TV) and CNBC Africa, performing some 4,500 interviews with listed company CEOs, economists and senior politicians. For much of his career he was a journalist at Financial Mail, at some stage running every department in this leading weekly publication and serving as Deputy Editor from 2007 to 2010. 


He has served as Deputy News and Sports Editor for Talk Radio 702 and has presented radio business programmes on SAfm and Classic FM. He continues to write for Financial Mail as a Contributing Editor.


David’s areas of expertise are governance, military history, railways, and education. He edited the King IV governance codes for the Institute of Directors, and the 2014 Defence Review for the Department of Defence. He has co-authored corporate histories for HL Hall & Sons and Talk Radio 702. He has recently assisted with the writing of personal memoirs for Basil Hersov (Anglo Vaal) and Dick Foxton, the leading communications consultant; and has written a biography of Prof Mervyn King SC.


David has written several books on rugby, cricket, and military history, and is at present completing a major work on the South African railways, “On the Railway/Op Die Spoorweg”, commissioned by Tafelberg.

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