About Niven

Niven is a globally recognised expert in leadership and workplace politics and the author of If you don’t do Politics, Politics will do you. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Organisational Behaviour to understand how organisational politics are different for women, and the outcomes of her research will form the basis of her second book.

She is a contributor to Harvard Business Review, a tutor at Cambridge University’s Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) and a guest lecturer at Stanford University and London Business School. She was selected as an Archbishop Tutu Leadership Fellow in 2007 and is now the Programme Director for the Fellowship.

Niven has held executive positions since she was 29 in a career that has spanned multiple sectors and roles, including being CEO of the Businesswomen’s Association, CEO of NOAH (Nurturing Orphans of AIDS for Humanity), Head of the South African Reserve Bank Academy and Head of Leadership and Culture for the Standard Bank Group (the largest bank by assets in Africa).