Our People

Ray Hartley

Research Director, The Brenthurst Foundation

South Africa

Ray Hartley is the Research Director of the Brenthurst Foundation. Ray has a postgraduate honours degree from Rhodes University where he studied African politics and journalism.

Ray was an anti-apartheid activist in the United Democratic Front while serving on the executive of the National Union of South African Students. He later worked for the Human Awareness Programme, an NGO which provided training and advice to activists. He then worked as an administrator in the Codesa constitutional negotiations that ended apartheid. After a stint as the boxing correspondent of the then Weekly Mail, he joined Business Day and then the Sunday Times. He covered the Nelson Mandela presidency, travelling the world with him and witnessing the birth of the new, democratic South Africa.

He has edited several prominent South African newspapers and online publications, including the Sunday Times, The Times, Rand Daily Mail and BusinessLIVE.

Ray is the author of Ragged Glory: The Rainbow Nation in Black and White, which tells the story of the first two turbulent decades of democracy in South Africa. He wrote The Big Fix: How South Africa Stole the 2010 World Cup and Ramaphosa: The Man Who Would be King. Ray also authored chapters in Better Choices and In The Name of the People and is co-author of The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly: Scenarios for South Africa's Uncertain Future