Cynthia Rayner

Biography

Cynthia Rayner is a senior researcher affiliated with the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business. She is also a Visiting Fellow at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, University of Oxford, Said Business School. Her research focuses on collective agency and how organizations and communities work together to shape social systems. Cynthia’s work in social change began when she joined the LGT Impact Fellowship which brought her to South Africa for more than a decade. She has served in several organizations, including Generation Ubuntu, an afterschool program in Cape Town; mothers2mothers, an African social enterprise; and the Starfish Greathearts Foundation, a nonprofit organization in South Africa. She is the co-author of The Systems Work of Social Change published by Oxford University Press. Cynthia holds a BA from Georgetown University, an MBA from INSEAD, and is currently pursuing her PhD at the University of Cape Town.