Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa (born 17 November 1952) is a South African lawyer, trade union leader, activist, politician and businessman. He was born in Soweto, Gauteng province. While Ramaphosa was previously a major figure in South African national politics, he has in recent years become a prominent figure in the business community.

Widely respected as a skilful and formidable negotiator and strategist, Ramaphosa is best known for building up the biggest and most powerful trade union in South Africa — the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) — as well as for the crucial role he played, with Roelf Meyer of the National Party, during the negotiations to bring about a peaceful end to apartheid and steer the country towards its first democratic elections in April 1994.

He is married to Dr. Tshepo Motsepe and he has four children (two with his current wife).

Although he spent most of his childhood in Soweto, he matriculated at Mphaphuli High School in Sibasa, Venda, in 1971. He subsequently registered to study law at the University of the North (Turfloop) in 1972.

Dr. Mohamed "Mo" Ibrahim (born 1946) is a British mobile communications entrepreneur and billionaire. He worked for several other telecommunications companies before founding Celtel, which when sold had over 24 million mobile phone subscribers in 14 African countries. After selling Celtel in 2005 for $3.4 billion, he set up the Mo Ibrahim Foundation to encourage better governance in Africa, as well as creating the Mo Ibrahim Index, to evaluate nations' performance. He is also a member of the Africa Regional Advisory Board of London Business School. In 2007 he initiated the Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership, which awards a $5 million initial payment, and a $200,000 annual payment for life to African heads of state who deliver security, health, education and economic development to their constituents and democratically transfer power to their successors.

Born in north Sudan, a Halfawi of Arab heritage, Ibrahim earned a Bachelor of Science from the University of Alexandria in Electrical Engineering. He started working in England and earned a master's degree from the University of Bradford in Electronics and Electrical Engineering, and a Ph.D from the University of Birmingham in Mobile Communications.

Roelof Petrus (Roelf) Meyer, born in Port Elizabeth on 16 July 1947 as the son of a farmer, is a South African politician and businessman.

After completing school in Ficksburg, he studied law at the University of the Free State and finished with B Comm (1968) and LLB (1971) degrees. At the university, he was president of the conservative "Afrikaanse Studentebond". Meyer then practised as a lawyer in Pretoria and Johannesburg until 1980.

In 1979 he entered politics as he was elected a Member of Parliament for the National Party in the Johannesburg West Constituency. In 1986 he became Deputy Minister of Law and Order and in 1988 of Constitutional Development (until 1991). With the declaration of the first State of Emergency in 1985, the National Joint Management Centre (NJMC), chaired by the Deputy Minister of Law and Order, took over as the nerve centre for co-ordination of all welfare and security policies.

In 1991, F. W. De Klerk appointed him as Minister of Defence as successor of Magnus Malan. Allegedly, the verligte Nat ("liberal" or "enlightened" NP politician) couldn't win the respect of the generals in this position. In May 1992, after nine months in office, he resigned and became Minister of Constitutional Affairs and of Communication as successor of Gerrit Viljoen. It was this position which brought him into the negotiating process.

Charles Peete "Charlie" Rose, Jr. (born January 5, 1942) is an American television talk show host and journalist. Since 1991 he has hosted Charlie Rose, an interview show distributed nationally by PBS since 1993. He has also co-anchored CBS This Morning since January 2012. Rose, along with Lara Logan, has hosted the revived CBS classic Person to Person, a news program during which celebrities are interviewed in their homes, originally hosted from 1953 to 1961 by Edward R. Murrow.

Rose was born in Henderson, North Carolina, the only child of Margaret Frazier and Charles Peete Rose, Sr., tobacco farmers who owned a country store. As a child, Rose lived above his parents' store in Henderson and helped out with the family business from age seven. Rose admitted in a Fresh Dialogues interview that as a child his insatiable curiosity was constantly getting him in trouble. A high school basketball star, Rose entered Duke University intending to pursue a degree with a pre-med track, but an internship in the office of Democratic North Carolina Senator B. Everett Jordan got him interested in politics. Rose graduated in 1964 with a bachelor's degree in history. At Duke, he was a member of the Kappa Alpha Order fraternity. He earned a Juris Doctor from the Duke University School of Law in 1968. He met his wife, Mary (née King), while attending Duke.