Ruth LewinRuth has over 40 years of experience in the non-government, government and corporate sectors. She is currently the Head of Corporate Sustainability at Discovery, a global company headquartered in South Africa.
She first joined Discovery Limited in 2004 and was responsible for establishing an independent social investment vehicle, the Discovery Fund, which has a clear mandate of investing in the delivery of primary healthcare services. She also launched the Employee Volunteer Program within Discovery with the intention of linking volunteerism to beneficiary organizations of the Discovery Fund. Since then, volunteering has been an integral part of the company’s culture. Ruth was also tasked with the responsibility of establishing and running a second investment vehicle, the Discovery Foundation, with the objective of investing in training medical specialists within the public health sector. Both mandates were to meet very specific health needs within South Africa.
As the Head of Corporate Sustainability, Ruth has led the team that implemented a multi-stakeholder initiative, with volunteering as a central component. The aim was to implement a sustainable development approach to addressing multiple challenges within one single community, utilizing appropriate volunteer skills. Within her role, Ruth has presented Discovery’s CSI philosophy and program on a range of national and international platforms and specifically at the IAVE World Volunteer Conference in Mexico City in 2016 and at the International AIDS conference in Amsterdam in 2018.
Prior to her work with Discovery, Ruth has contributed to the anti-apartheid work during the 1980s, building civic organizations and supporting work amongst youth and women. She was responsible for the administration of the African National Congress delegation at the Groote Schuur Talks about Talks in 1990. She was appointed Western Cape head of administration in the first democratic elections in 1994 and Western and Northern Cape regional manager for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1996.
