Melissa Govender works as a Senior Manager for New Business, while also serving as Head of our AI Policy Lab.

Melissa works to identify areas for collaboration within the digital economy. Her work focuses on the digital divide, and how technology can be used to unlock economic opportunities and growth in Africa, ensuring alignment with the African Union’s Agenda 2063. Melissa has extensive stakeholder mapping and engagement experience having spearheaded advocacy campaigns that included government departments, regulators, private sector industry bodies like Business Unity South Africa, and the Banking Association of South Africa.

Prior to Access Partnership, Melissa headed up Regulatory Engagements for British American Tobacco’s Southern African operations. Melissa has spent over five years working in the financial sector, where she assessed prudential and market conduct regulation; she also assisted with the establishment of Standard Bank’s Regulatory Advocacy Unit and pioneered The Regulatory Dialogue series. Melissa has trained as a diplomat and, on completion of her master’s degree in International Political Economy from the London School of Economics, she was selected for the Development Bank of Southern Africa’s Young Professional Program. Melissa holds a BA degree in Political Science and Media Writing, obtained from the University of Cape Town.