Tony Leon

urrently the Chairman of Resolve Communications (Pty) Ltd., he also consults to business in South America and South Africa, writes a column for South Africa's leading newspaper, Business Day, and speaks to various audiences.
For nearly twenty years Tony Leon was a Member of Parliament in South Africa, and for thirteen years he led the Democratic Alliance. He is the longest serving Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, since the advent of democracy in April 1994. He led and grew his party from its marginal position on the brink of political extinction into the second largest political force in South Africa.
A trained lawyer, Leon actively participated in the critical constitutional negotiations that led to the birth of a democratic South Africa. He has been at the forefront of national and international events, both as a front-ranking parliamentarian and renowned orator and writer and as a Vice-President of Liberal International. He has addressed many international conferences, institutes and think tanks from the Council on Foreign Relations (Washington DC, and New York City) and the Royal Institute for International Affairs (Chatham House), London, to the German Council on Foreign Relations, Berlin, the European Parliament in Brussels and to the World Economic Forum, Oxford Union and Yale Political Union.
Tony Leon has been widely published in academic journals and in the media and has authored articles for inter alia, Time Magazine, The Spectator, Harvard International Review, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Financial Times, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Daily Telegraph, and the New Statesman. He has published four books: "Hope and Fear: Reflections of a Democrat" (Jonathan Ball 1998), the SA bestsellers "On the Contrary: Leading the Opposition in a Democratic South Africa" (Jonathan Ball 2008), which won the prestigious Recht Malan Prize for nonfiction that year. Pan MacMillan published "The Accidental Ambassador", in April 2013. In May 2014, he launched his new book "Opposite Mandela – Encounters with South Africa's Icon", to critical acclaim.
After standing down from the leadership of the opposition in 2007, he was awarded a Fellowship at the Institute of Politics, John F Kennedy School of Government, Harvard
University. He led a study group and seminar series on Development and Democracy in Africa. In 2008 he was invited as a fellow to the Cato Institute in Washington DC, where he published a paper on liberal democracy in Africa.
Nelson Mandela said of Tony Leon, on his retirement from political leadership (2007):
"Your contribution to democracy is enormous, you have more support for all you have done than you might ever read about."
Speaking Topics for Tony Leon
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Lights off in South Africa, Lights on for the Opposition?
An inside look at where the country finds itself at a time of huge change!
The increased load shedding, xenophobic violence and sense of national drift occurs at the precise moment when the Official Opposition's leadership is about to change dramatically.
With an insiders perspective, Founding DA Leader and Former Ambassador Tony Leon provides a riveting read of our National and Political Balance Sheet.