Francois Bonnici

QUALIFICATIONS: MB ChB (University of Cape Town) MSc Epidemiology/Public Health (London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine) DLSHTM (London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine) MBA (University of Oxford)

AREAS OF EXPERTISE: Social innovation, social entrepreneurship, health innovation, systems work

François is a medical doctor and the former Founding Director of the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation & Entrepreneurship at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business, in partnership with the Bertha Foundation. The Bertha Centre has rapidly become the leading academic centre and platform for building capacity and action towards advancing the discourse and systemic impact of social innovation in Africa.

He served as the Director of the Bertha centre for close on seven years, and formally stepped down from this role in early 2018. He is currently on sabbatical, and serves as an Associate Fellow of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Oxford, while working on the manuscript for a book.

His career spans 20 years working in clinical medicine, humanitarian & development programmes, public-private partnerships, and innovative social change initiatives, during which he has been recognised as a Rhodes Scholar; Global Leadership Fellow of the World Economic Forum; Archbishop Tutu African Leadership Fellow and under his leadership, the Bertha Centre team was awarded the UCT Distinguished Social Responsiveness Award.

He has taught extensively at undergraduate, masters, executive levels at University of Cape Town, University of Oxford and Harvard Kennedy School. He has published in health and development and was the Contributing Editor to the MIT journal’s special edition on “Social Innovation in a Post Crisis World, as well as many other review publications, cases and news opinion pieces on social innovation.

François attained his MBChB medical degree from the University of Cape Town with the gold medal as the top medical graduate; a Masters in Public Health and Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; and a MBA with the Saïd prize as the top overall MBA graduate from the University of Oxford's Saïd Business School.

He is a board member of the Tshisimani Centre for Activist Education.