About IWMF: Board of Directors

Ferial Haffajee is the first woman editor of the Mail & Guardian. She joined the newspaper, which is South Africa’s leading weekly, in February 2004.

Haffajee, also a regular radio and television commentator, specializes in current affairs, media freedom and women's empowerment. She previously was a senior editor at the South African weekly Financial Mail and a radio and television producer at the South African Broadcasting Corporation.

She also developed and edited the Little Black Book, South Africa's comprehensive book of black leaders. She is editor of the annual Book of South African Women, which features 300 leaders across the private, public and civil society sectors.

While working as a public broadcaster, Haffajee was part of the team that interviewed Nelson Mandela and former president F. W. De Klerk preceding the freedom elections of 1994.

In 2006, Haffajee was appointed chairperson of the South African National Editors’ Forum. She also sits on the board of GenderLinks, a leading African advocacy group pushing for gender equality through media. A member of the Africa Leadership Initiative, Haffajee won both the 2004 Shoprite Checkers Woman of the Year award (Media and Communication) and the 2006 Media Magazine’s Woman in Media competition.

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