risk management across cultures: rmac

Eve Thompson has a long history of promoting democracy, good governance, respect for the rule of law, as well as the advancement in society of women, youth and other historically marginalized groups in Africa. She has also worked tirelessly to promote value-centered leadership in the world, in general.  

She has held several Country Director posts in promoting democracy and good governance and conflict mitigation in Africa and she also directed the United Nations University’s International Leadership Academy in Amman, Jordan which brought mid-career professionals from around the globe to the center of the world to reflect on their leadership practice.

She founded FEMPO and VOKAL, two projects aimed at women political empowerment and promoting the intellectual and experiential worth of African women, respectively. She also founded the Bus Factory Craft Centre, the only one of five projects intended to anchor the revitalization of Johannesburg’s Newtown Arts Precinct that was actually brought to fruition.  

She studied English Literature at Princeton University and Law at Georgetown University Law Center before working as an associate at a law firm in Washington, DC and making the transition to working in Human Rights Law and Democracy and Good Governance promotion. She has specifically engaged stakeholders from governments to civil society in West, Central and Southern Africa in forecasting, scenario planning and strategic decision-making.

Dr. Richard Robinson, an American academic born in Congo to American missionary parents has lived and worked mostly in Congo for the last 20 years.  Most recently he has worked as a mining executive functioning primarily on risk management and on ensuring that host communities benefit from the presence of mining concerns.  As part of his work in mining, Dr. Robinson worked in international development working as country director in Congo for an international non-governmental organization and as a representative of the United States Agency for International Development who developed the U.S. government approach to reducing conflict minerals trade through promoting responsible large scale and artisanal mining.

As a Fulbright fellow in South Africa, he helped to establish an MBA program at the leading historically black university, Fort Hare, the alma mater of some of the most prominent historical figures on the African continent, including Nelson Mandela.  Dr. Robinson is a practicing Buddhist having been initiated into this practice at a Buddhist retreat center in Nepal in the early 1970s.  Following that, for two years, he ran the Insight Meditation Retreat Center in Massachusetts, USA and later worked as a disability rights specialist in Massachusetts and at the University of San Francisco.   Here is a link featuring an interview about the work in which Richard is engaged - leveraging mining resources to build and support the advancement of African communities.  http://www.africanmining.co.za/2019/04/18/richard-robinson-working-wonders-in-the-drc/