Cynthia Rayner

Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford Saïd Business School’s Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship

Cynthia Rayner is a senior researcher and adjunct lecturer 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 the social sector 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 educating children living with HIV in Cape Town; mothers2mothers, an African social enterprise employing women to guide other women to good health; and the Starfish Greathearts Foundation, a nonprofit supporting children and families 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 in organization and management theory at the University of Cape Town. She lives in Houston, Texas.