Dr Thelela Ngcetane-Vika is a respected corporate governance and leadership scholar, management and social scientist. She is also a legal scholar specializing in international business law, published author and researcher at the Global Centre for Academic Research/South Valley University. Her research focuses on corporate governance laws in South Africa and UK, governance in general in the Continent of Africa, international trade law, women empowerment and leadership development frameworks.

She also offers Advisory and Consultancy Services in Corporate Governance, Leadership and Law. She has been asked to address various audiences on the above specialties. As a bricoleur, she uses transformative approaches to blend the practice of law and the development of women as a research agenda. As an advocate for social justice, she is involved in action research for championing human rights issues in Africa and globally. As a Corporate Governance specialist, she tirelessly advocates for good governance. She is currently an Engagement Tutor and Assessor for the Women Leadership Development Programme at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, UK.

She authored and edited a “Servant for All Seasons” book published in April 2021. Furthermore, she used the phenomenology research method to produce her memoir that focused on Southern epistemologies entitled: “Running with my parents’ shadows: traversing a leadership avalanche” in August 2021. Investigating this memoir, she relied heavily on onomastics. Both books are available on Amazon book distributors.

In 2021, her academic work culminated in a book chapter on leadership entitled “A functional nexus between theory and praxis for developing Women Leaders in Africa”; this book was published in September 2021. 

As part of her PhD research, she co-published two scientific papers on the Open Science framework with Prof King Costa, titled: 

• “Connecting Theoretical Perspectives and Praxis on African Women Leadership and Development Agenda”.
• “A comparative analysis of strengths and weaknesses of corporate governance practices between two jurisdictions; the UK and South Africa”.

In June 2022, she published a comparative analysis of Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing:

• “Comparative Analysis of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Counter-Terrorist Financing (CTF) regimes in the UK and USA, June 2022, Open Science Framework Preprint, OSF.10/preprints/Africarx.”

Dr Ngcetane-Vika presented her scientific work at three (3) international conferences; the 6th ARQA International Conference on Qualitative Research, the 3rd Open Learning, Malaysia and two papers at the 6th World Conference on Qualitative Research in January 2022. She also edits the Costa Research Institute's preprint journal, an administrative arm of the Global Centre for Academic Research. Previously, she was an editor of a newsletter and published books, dissertations and theses of Master’s and PhD students from South Africa and beyond. 

In January 2023, she presented two (2) papers she co-authored in a World Conference in Qualitative Research (WCQR2023) In Algarve, Portugal.  Her papers examined areas of leadership, one on the dichotomized perspectives of leadership and management, second one on the Art of Self-leadership during unprecedented global change.

In her early years (1997-2001), she taught for five (5) years at the then Vista University in the Languages Department.  While tenured there at Vista, she co-authored two books with a former UNISA Professor. Having taught at Vista University, later she branched off to business and Law.

In June 2022, she attained her PhD (summa cum laude) from South Valley University. Her PhD thesis, is entitled: “A Qualitative Evidence Synthesis on the Impact of leadership and management on corporate governance in South Africa”. Her work weaves through various sub-Saharan countries, UK, US and Europe. Her thesis examined major corporate scandals from Enron, Leman Brothers, Barrings Bank collapse, Zimbabwe governance decline and in South Africa, it examined corporate scandals reported at Eskom, PRASA, SABC, Transnet, among others. Her research is centered on the question whether leadership and management have an impact on Corporate Governance in South Africa.

Inspired by the findings of her study, she developed a Theory called Triad of Corporate Governance Effectiveness – A guide to Ownership interests, Board Independence, Duality Paradox, Voluntary Disclosure, Director’s Commitments and Reinforcing Accountability. Her thesis has received great commendations and reviews from her examiners.