Testimonials

 I have known Lauren Jankelowitz for over 7 years, since I became the supervisor of her Doctoral Research in 2015. During that time, we have become close professional colleagues, as our research and teaching interests are closely aligned. We have co-taught several courses, co-authored some publications and co-presented several conference papers. Lauren submitted her thesis, & after minor revisions, defended. She graduated with Academic Honours in April 2021. Lauren is an accomplished senior executive with an excellent track-record in founding and managing social enterprises and has gained intimate knowledge of the South African and African public-private civil society eco-system. She has been directly responsible for transitioning an influential NGO into a self-sustaining enterprise and has been directly involved in creating and influencing social innovation in the HIV domain in South Africa and across the world. In her recent role as CEO of the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society, she was responsible for setting the vision and goals as well as operationalising them for her team. Her fundraising expertise is clearly proven by her success at accessing funding from some of the most demanding donors globally. She has also successfully managed a complex set of stakeholder relationships in a highly contested context, and as a result is skilled at building inclusive and collaborative partnerships and navigating diverse claims on her time and resources. This experience has served her well in her scholarly journey, from the perspective of both content and process. Her practical experience in social entrepreneurship contributed directly to her choice of thesis topic and her ability to think strategically and critically about the ‘as-practice’ implications of theoretical debates in the domain. She easily switches between theory and practice and back again. In addition, her real-world experience has made her skilled in creating relationships with a wide range of highly rated scholars across the world. She has also been successful at academic ‘fundraising’ which has allowed her to attend conferences and workshops at very low cost. Lauren’s personal characteristics served her equally well in both practitioner and scholarly areas. She is a creative and innovative thinker, which has resulted in a strong scholarly contribution to the body of social enterprise knowledge. She is efficient and organised, which enabled her to complete her doctorate in reasonable time, in spite of the usual interruptions to study that are experienced by all part time students. She is persistent and dedicated and has an extremely strong work ethic, which is evidenced by the abundance of scholarly outputs she has produced to date. I have absolutely no doubt that Lauren would make an excellent Director of any organisation/unit/company/institution, as well as offer meaningful academic contributions, because she has a demonstrable track record of successfully straddling the theoretical and practical worlds to the benefit of social innovators in South Africa and across the continent. 

Dr Kerrin Myres: PhD Supervisor