Kumi Naidoo

Kumi Naidoo is the Secretary General of Amnesty International and a life-long social justice campaigner hailing from South Africa. He lived in exile in the UK where he studied at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. When Nelson Mandela was freed, Kumi returned to South Africa where he worked with the African National Congress on education campaigns focused on adult literacy and voter empowerment of historically and systematically disenfranchised communities.

Previously, Kumi was the Executive Director of Greenpeace International where cemented his reputation as a bold activist who championed civil disobedience, most notably when he was arrested for scaling a Greenlandic oil rig to hand-deliver a petition in protest of drilling in the Arctic in 2011. In that role, he was instrumental in the global take off of the fossil-fuel divestment campaign, as well as building international support for the Paris Agreement.

Kumi’s most recent role has been as a co-founder and interim chair of the pan-African organization, Africans Rising for justice, peace and dignity. The group, which has forged partnerships across trade unions, religion, and civil society, aims to change the fact that while Africa as a continent has benefitted from economic growth, Africans themselves have not shared in that increasing wealth and power.