ANNETTE MULLER (SOUTH AFRICA)

I live my life guided by my heart and intuition and I believe that even when it leads me into the belly of the beast, it is an opportunity for growth and surrender.

I was hyper aware of my body from an early age, as most women are, bombarded by the media and societies projection of what I should look like. I was determined to keep up. At 14, I was scouted and started modelling which deepened my obsession to look just like the girls in the magazines. I realised the power I had with my body, but did not develop the boundaries around what happened to it. And so I learned how to disembody as a coping mechanism for the times that I felt like my body was no longer my own. It was not until I turned 21, that I realised how ‘out of my body’ I truly was. When the body gets sick, it is a cry for connection, a cry to come home. My journey of healing began at the most basic level, sensation and nourishment. Overcoming eating disorders, gut issues and self-inflicted numbing through partying and codependent relationships, I was forced to wake up to self-love and what that truly meant. It was only through allowing myself to feel, that I was able to trace back to the root of my pain and begin the timeless journey of healing body, mind and soul.

Embodiment is a coming home. An awareness and an acceptance from the inside out. Trauma causes one to erase, shame or blame parts of ourselves. To retrieve these lost parts, we require safe space and a full reclaiming of ALL that we are. Unapologetically embracing our wild, our rage, our pleasure and our pain. I offer gatherings, classes and private sessions which use movement, sound and natures wisdom to guide you back to your first home, the body.

CATHERINE CONSTANTINIDES (SOUTH AFRICA)

SOCIAL ENTREPRENEUR | HUMANITARIAN | EARTH WARRIOR | GLOBAL ACTIVIST I LEADER OF CHANGE

Proudly rooted in her home country of South Africa, Catherine is an international climate activist, human rights defender, trailblazer and agent of change. A 2013 Archbishop Tutu African Oxford Fellow and 2016 Mandela Washington Fellow, Catherine’s commitment and passion for social change takes her to the smallest of communities in South Africa, as well as global platforms including the UN, where she currently works as a human rights defender actively engaging in Geneva at the UN Human Rights Council for the world’s most marginalised and vulnerable .

Catherine’s recent work on the issue of the self-determination for the people of Western Sahara has seen her engaged on the ground in the refugee camps in North Africa as well as with political leadership across the continent and around the world to highlight the conflict and lack of political will to address, one of the longest outstanding issues on the UN Security Council agenda. She travels extensively across the continent, and to all corners of the world to speak about citizenship, social justice, active citizens, people & planet and the role of leadership, with a special focus on the empowerment of women and children. In November 2017 she was an invited panelist at the inaugural Obama Summit hosted by former President Barack Obama, in Chicago. She has been the resident judge and mentor on the highly acclaimed reality TV series; ‘One Day Leader’, a show aimed at empowering South African youth, challenging their critical thinking skills and harnessing their ability as leaders in their communities. She has been featured in numerous publications and on TV and radio shows as a thought leader, and also contributes to Huffington Post, Daily Maverick and other platforms.

In 2015 she was named one of South Africa’s 21 Icons for a campaign highlighting remarkable young South Africans who will move the country forward. In 2016 the South African Government and Department of International Relations (DIRCO) honoured her with an UBUNTU Award, celebrating South Africans who play a part in portraying a positive image of South Africa, internationally and who are committed to building the continent through diplomacy. She has been celebrated for excellence in the fields of entrepreneurship and business, and in 2018 was ranked as one of the top 100 Most Influential Young Africans, and placed Top 10 in her category of Social Entrepreneur and Philanthropy. In 2018 as the world celebrates the iconic former Statesman, Nelson Mandela, Catherine has been dubbed as one of the 100 Young Mandela’s of the Future.

 Amid all of her commitments, Catherine remains active in Generation Earth, a UN Environment endorsed platform that she co-founded at the beginning of her career. Generation Earth targets the youth of Southern Africa and uses issues of environmental impact, climate change, water and waste as key focus areas to drive sustainable change.

GARY DOURDAN (USA)

Gary Dourdan began his acting career at an early age when he enrolled in a prestigious inner-city program in Philadelphia called “Freedom Theater.” Born and raised in Philadelphia, Dourdan began making weekly trips to New York City for auditions and music lessons. Before long, he relocated to New York where he trained in the “Meisner” technique and at Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute.

His career escalated to numerous roles in off-Broadway plays, fashion magazine layouts and a well recognized love interest in Janet Jackson’s video hit “Again.” During this time he caught the attention of television director and producer Debbie Allen. She suggested that Gary move to Hollywood to pursue more work in TV and film.

Dourdan’s career break came when he was cast in “The Cosby Show” spin-off, “A Different World,” as “Shazza”. After that, more television appearances followed including, “The Good Fight,” the HBO miniseries “Laurel Avenue,” a lead role in Dick Wolf’s series “Swift Justice,” as well as BET’ “Soul Food” and “Beggars and Choosers.” Gary also starred opposite Terrence Howard as “Malcolm X” in the ABC television movie, “Muhammad Ali: King of the World.”

On the big Screen, Gary Dourdan landed his first major role as the character “Yates” in “Playing God,” opposite David Duchovny and Angelina Jolie. That same year he was also cast in Alien: Resurrection” with Sigourney Weaver and Winona Ryder. Other notable film credits include “New Jersey Turnpikes” with Kelsy Grammar. His independent feature works included “Scarred City” with Chazz Palminteri and “The Weekend,” with Brook Shields and Gena Rowlands. “The Weekend” won a special jury prize at the Seattle Film Festival for Best Ensemble Cast.

In 2000, Gary Dourdan starred as “Warrick Brown” in the #1 crime drama television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation with co-stars William Peterson and Margaret Helenberger. The acclaimed CBS series has been nominated for Golden Globes, EMMYS and SAG Awards. The show has also won the People’s Choice Award and has achieved a phenomenal status as the number one TV show in the world. Gary Dourdan was nominated twice and won for “Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series” by the NAACP Image Awards in 2006 & 2007; he also won a SAG Award along with being nominated for a Golden Globe, Emmy Award and several People Choice Awards. In 2017, Gary Dourdan completed filming on ‘All She Wrote’ a dark comedy by young Bulgarian director Niki LLiev, in which he plays a former MMA champion suffering from brain damage caused by his fights. As a talented musician, Gary Dourdan was seen on the Emmy Awards singing a duet with Macy Gray and appearing with hip hop artist DMC on stage at the “Live 8 Concert” held in Ontario, Canada in 2005. In 2009, he was asked to make an endorsement for the Spanish Tourism board. He subsequently appeared in numerous events and shows in Europe including a duet with French Singer/Songwriter Ayo on National French TV, singing the classic Sam Cooke song “A Change is Gonna Come.”

In between guest appearances in such TV shows as Being Mary Jane, and most recently Power, Gary Dourdan has been spending time in his state-of-the-art recording studio composing music for an album and developing three films, including a musical, under his production company. His album which will include several well-known musical guests and is slotted for release in 2020.

ILANA FINTZ (ZIMBABWE/SOUTH AFRICA)

A Zimbabwean born yogi, Ilana was lucky enough to study Kundalini yoga with the master of the practice Yogi Bhajan in New Mexico some 20 years ago.

Her life work since has been spreading the teachings. With her husband she co runs a Kundalini studio Gururamdas is based in Cape Town and she runs Kundalini training in the Cape and India. She also co-created SpiritFestAfrica: A yoga music and dance wholistic family festival.

MARCIA AYACABA (EQUATORIAL GUINEA/SWITZERLAND)

Marcia is a Talent Development executive, a professional trainer and facilitator who helps organizations and individuals connect the dots to uncover their blind spots and accelerate the unfolding of their potential.

Marcia has spend most of her professional career in big corporate, using her passion for people and strong belief in the power of inclusiveness to affect the environments she works in. She has lead award winning initiatives to drive inclusiveness and engagement in Fortune 500 companies while delivering on cross-functional business objectives. 

She has also supported many individuals on their personal and spiritual journeys, with her unique approach blending modern and traditional tools, western and African philosophy, compassionate and no-non sense feedback. And although she is a lover of change, she has deep respect for ancestral wisdom and their healing powers.  

Marcia is a continuous learner who is blessed to be surrounded by amazing teachers, her masters being her three very expressive children.

MELISSA BARTHOLOMEW (USA)

Melissa Wood Bartholomew is a racial justice and healing practitioner committed to a multidisciplinary approach to healing justice that is rooted in the African philosophy of Ubuntu, restorative justice, and the ethic of love. After practicing law for nearly 10 years, she realized that the law could not facilitate the heart changes required to eradicate racism from individuals and systems. Her commitment to eradicating racism and healing from its effects through multidisciplinary strategies emerges from her experiences as a public interest attorney, a mediator, a minister, and social worker. Melissa is a Racial Justice Fellow at Harvard Divinity School, and an Instructor in Ministry at HDS, where she received her Master of Divinity. She received her MSW from Boston College School of Social Work where she is completing her PhD and will begin teaching Diversity & Cross-Cultural Issues in the fall. Her research interests include the impact of racism, incarceration, and other systems of oppression on the mental health of African Africans, and the role of spirituality in their resilience. She is also an adjunct professor at Boston College Law School where she co-facilitates a Restorative Justice course that she co-designed. Melissa facilitates love-centered racial healing workshops utilizing her framework Healers of the Wound: Healing Racism from the Inside Out.

PORTIA DIANNE LEE (USA)

Portia is the founder of DBA Day Seven Wellness Center, a non-profit wellness center focused on providing our global community with access to proven and practiced strategies helping to heal and contribute to the human collective’s overall emotional and spiritual wellbeing. She is an author, Master Reiki Practitioner, Soul Master Practitioner, Master Practitioner- Emotional Freedom Therapy and Thought Field Therapy EMT/TFT, Akashic Records Clairvoyant Reader and Healer, Advanced Meditation coach. She blends the perfect mixture of tenacity with patience which allows her to manage being a single mom, business owner, and always finding time for her community.

With the guidance of Spirit and fulfilling her lifelong purpose, Portia aims to help as many people as possible reach enlightenment, understanding, peace with self and facing and dealing with our own Personal Traumas. Day Seven Wellness Center is Portia's vision of how to do just that. Taking her personal life mission and scaling it up to reach as many people as possible through Day Seven Wellness Center and Universal Achievers.

Another way Portia intends to help and touch as many people as possible is with the release of her first Published work "So I Woke Up... Now What" available for sale on Amazon.com. "So I Woke Up" has been a work in progress since Portia was a child. However, the knowledge, accolades, life experiences that Portia has garnered over the years and placed in this book makes this literary work extremely special, unique and life changing for the reade

SARAH COLLINS (SOUTH AFRICA)

Inventor, CEO and equality innovator Sarah Collins is best known as the creator of the Wonderbag, a globally conscious 1-for-1 social enterprise. Over the past 11 years over 1.5million Wonderbags have been activated in the Developed and Developing (majority) world. Sarah’s extreme dedication, resilience and determination has earned her Fortune Magazine’s Top 10 Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs, Oprah’s African Heroines, Fair Lady’s prestigious Woman of the Future Award and in 2019 she graced the front cover of Forbes Africa Women Magazine as one of Africa’s top six wealth creators on the continent.

The Wonderbag is a simple but revolutionary, non-electric portable slow cooker. The South African invention is saving lives from smoke inhalation, combating deforestation, providing time for women to work and for children to go to school and preventing rape (82% of rapes happen while gathering firewood). Bill Gates, Chelsea Clinton, Jane Goodall and many other dignitaries and world leaders have lauded Wonderbag as a game changer.

Wonderbag was accredited by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and awarded 1st place in the Climate Change Leadership Awards and Eskom’s 2012 Innovation Award. In late 2018 Wonderbag made the acclaimed list for TIME Magazine’s Genius Companies issue alongside other companies like Apple, Occulus and Amazon. The proudly South African product and company also more recently earned itself further international acclaim by being included in the London Stock Exchange Group’s second edition and 2019 report for ‘Companies to Inspire Africa’, which identified Africa’s leading private companies with the most inspiring stories and strongest growth potential.

Sarah is a fierce advocate for opportunity and agency for women and families in Africa and around the world. Sarah’s impact as a CEO and advocate for women and families has led to her speaking at the 2014 Davos World Economic Forum, The Global Alliance in New York, The UN Social Good Summit, The Royal Geographic Society in London, The Eye On Earth Summit in Abu Dhabi and more. With over 10 years perfecting a unique 1 for 1 international business model, Sarah is known as the founder of Globally Conscious Capitalism, a movement which offers a fresh blueprint for aid agencies and the business community to work together in innovative ways that uphold human rights, honour human dignity and build sustainable economies.

After leading initiatives in this area for over 10 years, with successful partnerships with major corporations such as Unilever, Pfizer and Microsoft, Sarah current focus is to invite the global business community to participate in an alliance. The Alliance For Globally Conscious Capitalism is a call to action for businesses and aid agencies to come together under a common belief: the best global business models of the future will sell responsible, solution-oriented products and services and will scale ethically through human centred market entry and participation.

SILFATH PINTO (BENIN)

Silfath Pinto has spent the last 10 years supporting men and women in stepping into their brilliance and becoming happiness alchemists. She creates transformational experiences through her LuminEssence methodology, an unique fusion of Energy Medicine, Movement Therapy and Cellular Reprograming, which fosters deep shifts at a cellular level, clearing wounds, patterns and beliefs that are preventing us from living to the fullest of our potential. 

Silfath offerings focus on 4 main areas: somatic intelligence (healing the body), sacred relationships, life purpose/divine mission and feminine awakening. Her clients have experience beautiful paradigm shifts: from changing jobs to starting a new career, from letting go of past hurt to moving to a new city, from meeting their soulmate to improving relationships, from losing weight to flourishing in radical self-love. They call Silfath an energy shifter, a medicine woman, an adorable giggler and magic maker.

In her passionate quest to empower men and women to create uplifting and lasting changes, Silfath is constantly researching and growing in the fields of Energy Alchemy, Quantum Physics and Epigenetics. She has trained in various transformative modalities including Yin Yoga, Movement Therapy, Tibetan Bowl Sound Healing, NLP, Theta Healing® and Reiki. 

SIMON JONGENOTTER (THE NETHERLANDS)

Simon Jongenotter is a chef, Earth tender, healing facilitator and inspirational speaker on a mission to connect and empower people through their relationship to themselves, each other, the planet and his big passion: food. 

He travelled and lived in various countries for the past 20 years, exploring existence by moving out of his comfort zone into hectic restaurant kitchens, remote jungles, busy cities and a 5 year stint at a silent retreat center in rural Bali. He found a home, inside himself, through meditation, breathwork and energy healing.  

Driven by a deep love for all living beings, and a raging grief around the way we, as humans, treat our precious Mother Earth, Simon dedicates his life to facilitating growth and healing. He’s convinced that we can create a paradise for all living beings, if only we find our way back home to the sacred ways of Mother Nature.

He created the New Earth Cooking school in rural Bali, surrounded by a true food forest which he and the Indonesian team of food heroes planted and cares for since his move there in 2013. People from all over the world come there to explore and heal their relationship with themselves and Earth as Simon teaches a unique style of food he calls ‘New Earth Cooking’ (www.newearthcooking.com) He also co created a restaurant called ‘Zest’ which uses only local, plant based ingredients. (www.zestubud.com)

He travels regularly to share workshops, Earth circles and healing sessions. Besides that he consults for restaurant kitchens around the world.

SWAADY MARTIN (COTE D’IVOIRE/FRANCE/USA)

Swaady Martin is the founder of TOUNCHE. She is a serial entrepreneur, published author and former corporate executive at GE, where for 10 years she had various roles across the world. She was part of the pioneering Africa Dream Team and drove the expansion of GE’s portfolio of businesses across Africa by developing the 1st Africa Growth Playbooks for all GE businesses. In her last role at GE, she was the acting-CEO for GE South Africa Technologies and Director for GE Transportation for Sub- Saharan Africa. In 2012, she followed her entrepreneurial aspirations and created one of Africa’s most admired brands, YSWARA, a socially-conscious gourmet tea company contributing to the reversal of the African commodity trap and promoting Africa’s rich culture. YSWARA has received numerous awards and recognitions for its excellence and was the first African food brand to be retailed at the prestigious Selfridges and Harrods. In 2017, Swaady launched SHIFT WITHIN, a platform offering online & offline personal development courses and events to promote Africa’s inner revolution, including the annual Tounché Global Consciousness Summit. To date, more than 600 people have had transformative life experiences through SHIFT WITHIN programs and events. Profiled extensively in the media, from Forbes to CNN, BBC and Monocle, Swaady has made several magazine covers, received numerous awards including named to the Forbes and O Power Lists for Africa. She is a sought-after inspirational speaker, African fashion icon (Named GLAMOUR magazine Most GLAMOURous 2016) and a published author of spiritual tales for children.

THEBE IKALAFENG (SOUTH AFRICA)

Thebe Ikalafeng is arguably the foremost global African branding authority. In a distinguished corporate career which started at Colgate Palmolive in New York and concluded as chief marketing officer for NIKE for Africa, he won over 75 awards in branding and marketing communication globally. He is the founder of the award-winning Brand Leadership Group and has worked on over 100 corporate, nation and political brands across Africa . Brand Leadership has been recognized by Fin Week Magazine as “Marketing Services Agency of the Year” in 2008 and was inducted into the Rebrand “Hall of Fame” for Excellence in Branding in 2015. A fellow of the Institute of Directors, Ikalafeng is a non-executive director at South African Tourism, Mercantile Bank Group, Cartrack and WWF South Africa. He has held directorships in the public and private sector, including Brand South Africa, Foodcorp and Nike South Africa. He has been recognized by New African Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential Africans . He founded Brand Africa, an inter-generational movement to create a positive image of Africa, celebrate its diversity and drive its competitiveness and Brand Africa 100: Africa’s Best Brands, the only pan- African research and ranking of brands in Africa, to promote excellence in building brands in Africa. He is widely quoted and consulted globally as the pre-eminent authority on brands and branding in Africa. He has judged awards on design, branding and leadership globally, including the Red Dot Design awards in Germany and St. Gallen Symposium ‘Wings of Excellence’ in Switzerland. He has served as the inaugural vice-chairman of the Brand Council of Southern Africa and as the first indigenous African chairman of the Loeries. Ikalafeng holds BSc and MBA degrees from Marquette University in the USA, completed executive education at Wits Business School in South Africa and Harvard Business School in the US, and is a Chartered Marketer (SA). He has summited Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, the highest mountain in Africa and Mount Elbrus in Russia, the highest mountain in Europe. An avid traveller he has been to over 100 countries globally. He is an Afro optimist and passionate champion of ‘Made in Africa’ global excellence. He has been to every country in Africa. He writes, speaks and consults on Africa-focused branding, leadership and related matters.