Your course instructor

James Leach

Lecturer, Graduate School of Business, UCT, course convenor and lecturer for various UCT Law@work short courses.

James graduated from the University of Cape Town with a LLB in 2012 and a Master of Law in Commercial Law (LLM) with distinction in 2013, and completed a LLM in Shipping Law in 2014.
He became a lecturer in the Faculty of Law’s Commercial Law Department. James is the course convener and lecturer on the Postgraduate Diploma in Management Practice Specialising in Regulatory Compliance that is delivered through the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business. Outside of compliance management, his research interests lie in the intersection between theories of corporate legal regulation, cryptocurrencies and crypto-banking, data governance and privacy, and corporate governance.

Guest contributor

Tebello Thabane

Senior Lecturer in Commercial Law, Company Law & Corporate Governance.

Tebello is an advocate of the High Courts of South Africa and Lesotho. He is Senior Lecturer in commercial law at the Faculty of Law, University of Cape Town. He is also a doctoral candidate in the same department. His thesis focuses on the impact of the ownership and control architecture of state-owned companies on issues of corporate governance. He holds the following degrees: BA (Law), LLB, LLM (Commercial Law) and LLM (Human Rights). He further holds postgraduate certificates in Corporate Compliance and Commercial Dispute Mediation. Tebello practiced as an advocate for several years and later served as the Principal Secretary and Chief Advisor to the Minister of Law and Constitutional Affairs in the government of Lesotho before joining the academy. He lectures Company Law, Corporate Governance and Business Law.

Guest Contributor | Nigeria

Ibrahim Alagbe, Manager, DCSL

Ibrahim Alagbe is an Associate member of the Chartered Governance Institute (CGI), Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators, Nigeria (ICSAN) and Risk Managers Association of Nigeria (RIMAN). He has extensive experience in the provision of company secretarial services as well as start-up, regulatory and advisory services and advising Boards of Directors on matters of Corporate Governance in both private and public listed companies.

Ibrahim has been assisting companies to review and improve the effectiveness of their governance & compliance function and entity governance framework.

Guest Contributor

Rosa Nduati-Mutero

Partner, ALN Kenya|Anjarwalla & Khanna (A&K)

Rosa Nduati-Mutero is a Partner in A&K’s corporate department and she heads the Corporate Governance practice and co-heads the Capital Markets practice at A&K. She principally advises clients on corporate M&A, corporate governance, employment and commercial law. Rosa is an advocate of the High Court of Kenya, an accredited governance auditor, a certified public secretary, a certified public accountant and a member of the Law Society of Kenya and the Institute of Certified Secretaries. She is also currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Business Administration at the University of London.

Rosa is a frequent speaker at legal and business conferences and is one of the country’s experts on the Companies Act, 2015. Leading worldwide legal directories consistently recognise her as a leading lawyer, including Chambers Global, IFLR1000 and Legal 500. She was rated as one of the region’s “top women under 40” by Business Daily, Kenya’s leading business newspaper.

Guest contributor

Reginald Aziza

Attorney, Chevron Nigeria Limited | Doctoral Student, University of Oxford

Onoriode Reginald Aziza is a triple first-class lawyer who graduated with a Masters in Corporate Law from the University of Cambridge. Currently he is a doctoral student at the University of Oxford.

His expertise lie in securities law, investment and dispute resolution. Recently he joined the team at Chevron in Nigeria as an attorney. In 2017 Reginald spent six months with Shearman and Sterling in Paris and before that a short spell at Olaniwun Ajayi LP in Lagos. He was also briefly an associate with Herbert Smith Freehills in London. This placement in the London office was the culmination of the bursary awarded to him by the law firm to study at Cambridge. 

Guest contributor

Angeli Arora

Regional leader of the Private Equity Group of Dentons.

Angeli Arora is a highly experienced international lawyer with around 20 years experience acting for financial institutions and corporate enterprises on high stake or complex investments around the world.

Angeli graduated from Oxford University in 1998. Angeli spent over 10 years working in London for a top tier U.S. law firm, including becoming their youngest partner at age 30. Angeli also spent a number of years in Asia, heading up their office in Hong Kong. Angeli then moved to Africa, seeing an exciting opportunity to be part of the world’s next fastest growing economy after South Asia. To date, Angeli has acted in high profile transactions in over 70 jurisdictions, in most continents. In Africa, Angeli is involved in a number of initiatives which aim to address some of the complex investment challenges in the region, including corporate governance issues. Angeli is able to use her experiences from around the world to bring different perspectives and solutions to the table.

Angeli has received numerous awards and recognitions for her successes.

Guest contributor

Steven De Backer

Founder and CEO of Afriwise.

Steven De Backer is the founder and CEO of Afriwise. Afriwise really is the culmination of his career, from top roles at leading African and international law firms, managing internet projects and lecturing about legal-tech possibilities as early as 1999. Early on in his career, Steven co-lead a small team at European stock broker KBS Securities that launched the leading online trading platform in Belgium. It was a good start, but Steven quickly moved on to the legal sector.

After a stint at magic-circle firm Freshfields, he returned to Africa (where he grew up) to practise as a lawyer. Since 2003, Steven has relentlessly pursued ways to improve corporate legal services delivery in Africa. He was at the forefront of establishing and deepening a network of associated firms in Africa, helped to develop the Africa practice of what is today one of the leading law firms on the continent and founded an innovative interdisciplinary advisory firm in 2014. His main goal has always been to help businesses work smarter and more effectively in Africa.

A seasoned lawyer in his own right, Steven is named by the prestigious English research firm Chambers & Partners in Chambers Global as one of the leading corporate/M&A; projects & energy; and general business law lawyers in Africa. Chambers has noted that he is very well known for his work for clients across the African continent and is described by clients as “a class act”, stating that “there’s not much he doesn’t know about sub-Saharan Africa”.

Having lived and worked on the African continent for almost 30 years, in five different countries and having advised companies in over 40 African countries, Steven indeed has unparalleled on-the-ground, hands-on experience and a unique in-depth knowledge of navigating challenges in Africa.

Steven is also an economic diplomacy adviser to the Belgian Government for South Africa and a founding member and previous chairman of the European Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Southern Africa. He further sits on the advisory board of several companies active in East Africa.