Project Manager

Bennet is a Project Manager and has been involved in high-level events such as the German Presidency of the Council of the EU, the German G7 Presidency as well as the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU. He has worked with delegations visiting Germany for study tours and coordinated liaison officers for various high-level events.
Rebecka generally says: “Whatever you think is best!“

During his Master’s programme, Bennet worked for the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) as a free-lance consultant compiling and writing different reports on Good Governance topics with a focus on Civil Society Engagement. He then joined GIZ on a permanent basis working in the advisory team on including religious communities in development programmes before joining MIRS.

Bennet holds a Master’s degree in philosophy from the Munich School for Philosophy, focusing on political and feminist philosophy. He then continued his studies with a Master’s degree in development studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) with electives in disaster response, demography, and migration.

A native speaker in German, Bennet is fluent in English and has a working knowledge of French.

Associate Advisor

Dr Nomfundo Xenia Ngwenya is the Chief Strategy Officer for Ntsele Global, a small, black-owned South African investment group. She has worked extensively across the African continent as a senior government official, policy researcher and businesswoman.

She was previously Chief Director for African Economic Integration at the National Treasury, where she represented South Africa at key continental multilateral economic institutions such as the African Development Bank, the African Development Fund, the International Monetary Fund’s Afritac-South Steering Committee, the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). She previously chaired SACU’s Finance and Audit Committee and was South Africa’s Deputy at the ADF, where she co-chaired (with the UK) the working group on mobilising financial resources for Africa’s low-income countries.

Prior to her appointment as Chief Director, she was Director: Global Development Policy, where she headed National Treasury’s BRICS unit. In this role, she oversaw the formulation of South Africa’s negotiating position at the New Development Bank (NDB) and was part of the South African delegation to the inaugural negotiations of the NDB. After leaving National Treasury, she was appointed Programme Head for the the DfID-funded Globabl Economic Governance programme, where she oversaw research on regional trade, illicit financial flows and infrastructure financing. She has also headed the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA’s) South African Foreign Policy and African Drivers programme, served as an analyst at the South African Secret Service and lectured at the University of South Africa.

Dr Ngwenya is a member of the Institute of Directors and a Non-Executive Director of the Johannesburg Development Agency. She holds a PhD in International Studies from the University of Cambridge, MSc in Politics of the World Economy from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), MA and BA (Hons) in International Studies from the University of Stellenbosch and BA (Political Science) from the University of Port Elizabeth.