Wayne Visser

Biography

Wayne Visser was born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, raised in Cape Town, South Africa and now lives in London, United Kingdom. His early career was spent as a management consultant, first as a Strategy Analyst for Capgemini and then as Director of Sustainability Services for KPMG in South Africa. In 1995, he established a Johannesburg chapter of The World Business Academy and in 1997, he co-founded the South African New Economics Foundation. In 2008, he set up the research sharing platform CSR International and in 2012 started the thinktank and media company Kaleidoscope Futures. He holds a Chair in Sustainable Business at the Gordon Institute of Business Science and has held various roles at the University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership, including Research Director and, currently, Senior Associate and Online MSt Tutor.

Education

Wayne Visser completed his high school at Fairbairn College in 1987 and went on to study marketing and economics as part of a Business Science Honours degree at the University of Cape Town. In 1996, he studied at the Centre for Human Ecology, where he obtained an MSc with special commendation. In 2007, he qualified with a PhD in Business and Management from the International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility at Nottingham University Business School where he researched what motivates of sustainability managers, using existential psychology as his lens of analysis.

Recognition

Fast Company claims that "anyone interested in CSR will eventually come across Wayne Visser. He is very active in the field, and offers a unique and candid voice on the topic." CSRWire USA calls him "one of the most prolific, creative and original thought leaders on CSR and author/editor of books on the subject".

Contribution

Wayne Visser's research and writing promotes sustainable enterprise and the idea of CSR as "corporate sustainability & responsibility" and calls for an evolution from CSR 1.0 to CSR 2.0. He also proposes going beyond creating shared value and corporate social responsibility to the practice of Creating Integrated Value, or CIV. His theory of CSR 2.0 characterises CSR maturity into five stages, from defensive, charitable, promotional and strategic CSR (all labelled CSR 1.0) to systemic or transformative CSR (called CSR 2.0). He identifies three failures of CSR 1.0 (incremental, peripheral and uneconomic), five principles of CSR 2.0 (creativity, scalability, responsiveness, glocality and circularity) and four DNA elements of CSR 2.0 (value creation, good governance, societal contribution and environmental integrity). The CSR 2.0 theory is summarised in his books, The Age of Responsibility and CSR 2.0.

Films

Wayne Visser was a producer on the 2015 climate change documentary Sinking Nation, with Emmy Award winning director, Graham Sheldon. In 2016, they are collaborating again on a documentary film on the circular economy.

Writing

Wayne Visser has written 25 books, including 17 non-fiction and 8 fiction, and published more than 200 chapters and articles. He writes a regular column on international sustainable business for The Guardian newspaper. His book, Beyond Reasonable Greed, was made into a film called "Lessons From The Wild: Leadership – Tusks or Fangs". His poem "I Am An African", from his anthology of the same name, was the basis for a dance theatre production at South Africa's 2012 National Arts Festival in Grahamstown. and an inspiration behind Heleen du Plessis's Cello for Africa CD

Non-fiction

Fiction