The Brenthurst Team

Dr Greg Mills

Dr Gregory JB 'Greg' Mills (born 9 May 1962) heads the Johannesburg-based Brenthurst Foundation, established in 2005 by the Oppenheimer family to strengthen Africa's economic performance.

From 1996-2005 he served as the National Director of the South African Institute of International Affairs. He has lectured at universities and institutions in Africa and abroad, from the Pentagon to the Peruvian and Chilean Naval Staff Colleges, is on the visiting staff of the NATO Higher Defence College in Rome, and is a Fellow of the London-based Royal Society of Arts.

He has published numerous articles and books including The Wired Model: South African Foreign Policy and Globalisation (Tafelberg, 2000), which received the Recht Malan prize for the best South African non-fiction book that year, Poverty to Prosperity: Globalisation, Good Governance and African Recovery (Tafelberg, 2002), with Professor Jeffrey Herbst of Princeton University The Future of Africa: New Order in Sight? (Oxford University Press, 2003), The Security Intersection: The Paradox of Power in an Age of Terror (Wits University Press, 2005), and From Africa to Afghanistan: With Richards and NATO to Kabul (Wits University Press, 2007). He has also edited/co-edited over twenty other books, including most recently (with Christopher Clapham and Jeffrey Herbst) Big African States (Wits University Press, 2006). His interest in military history led to the publication of a volume (with David Williams) on Seven Battles that Shaped South African History (Tafelberg, 2006), now in its third edition. He is also widely published in journals, newspapers and magazines including the International Herald Tribune, New York Times, Time, Sydney Morning Herald, Financial Times, Singapore Strait Times, De Welt, Washington Quarterly, Foreign Policy, Current History, Survival, and Politiken.

He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Defence and International Security Studies (CDISS), a Member of Council and Associate Fellow of the London-based Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI), and a Member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). He serves on a number of international editorial boards.

During 2006, based in Kabul, he served as the special adviser to the Commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, General David Richards, and as the head of the strategic analysis 'Prism Group' of the ninth International Security Assistance Force (ISAF IX), for which role he received both NATO and UK campaign medals. During 2008 he was on secondment to the Government of Rwanda as Strategic Adviser to the President. In April 2008 he was appointed as a Commissioner on the Danish Prime Minister's Africa Commission. During 2009, he will be a visiting fellow at the Centre for African Studies at Cambridge University where he will be completing a book on the 'mystery' of economic growth and development.

In his role at the Brenthurst Foundation (www.thebrenthurstfoundation.com), he oversees a number of presidential advisory teams bringing together international expertise with African governments, along with writing and conducting field-work across the continent and organizing regular policy dialogues.

Greg holds a BA Honours from the University of Cape Town, and an MA and a PhD from the University of Lancaster. He is married to the acclaimed artist Janet Wilson, and they have three children, Amelia, Beatrix, and William. The grandson of pre-war South African Grand Prix driver WAF 'Billy' Mills, his recreational interests include restoring and racing historic racing cars, and he has written five books for charity on southern African motor racing, most recently Paddy - Who? A Driver's Life of Bikes and Cars (2009), an 800-page history of southern African motorsport. A Captain of Boats at university in the UK, he received university and SA provincial colours for rowing, and provincial colours for motorsport (1981), and represented South Africa and Britain at motorsport.