Prof. Derick de Jongh occupied various positions in the field of Human Resources ranging from specialized HR to acting as Group HR manager for a major bank in South Africa.

He then was appointed to head up a Consulting Firm, Knowledge Brokers International as CEO, focusing on offering Training and Consulting services to the SA market and in the UK. He established an office in London in 1999 offering the same services as in SA. The main focus areas were that of Sales and Marketing, Leadership Development and Creativity and Innovation.

Early in 2000, he was appointed as General Manager: Group Strategic Marketing at a major bank in SA focusing on the positioning of the Bank in the emerging market of SA. He also established a Foundation within the Bank and started the whole Corporate Social Investment (CSI) strategy, specifically integrating CSI with the Bank’s business value proposition. He was selected (in 2001) to represent the private sector on a Task Team initiated by the Minister of Social Development, Dr Zola Skweyiya (MP) to fast track public private partnership in social development.

He is Vice Chairman of an NGO, “HEARTBEAT”, which objective is to establish community development programmes in addressing the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic on orphans severely affected by the pandemic.  This NGO was established early 2000 and already is recognized as the benchmark in the SA Government and SA Civil Society as the model of distinction on cross-sector partnership in community development.

He joined the University of South Africa in September 2002 as the founding Director of the Centre for Corporate Citizenship (CCC) in the College of Economic and Management Sciences. The vision of the CCC is “Business in Service of Humanity”. The mission of the CCC is to become a global leader in building individual and institutional capacity for sustainable business and social cohesion. The CCC has established several local and international partnerships in furthering the corporate citizenship debate through educational and research interventions. The CCC is already recognized locally, on the African continent and internationally as thought leaders in the field of corporate citizenship.

Derick was appointed on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Corporate Citizenship since February 2003 as well as the Journal for Innovation and Sustainable Development since June 2005. He has presented a number of papers at international symposia on the topic of corporate citizenship over the past 24 months. He is member of a global task team initiated by the United Nations Environment Programme, Finance Initiative (UNEP/FI) and the Global Reporting Initiative in developing a GRI sector supplement for the international finance sector. He is also a member of the JSE Securities Exchange SA Advisory Committee, member of the Sustainable Futures Advisory Committee at the National Business Initiative, member of Council of the Vega School for Brand Communications and a member of the Panel of Judges for the annual Marketing Excellence Awards in SA. Derick is also part of an International Task Team chaired by  the European Foundation for Management Development and the UN Global Compact on redesigning MBA Curricula. He has recently been appointed on the Council of AccountAbility (UK).

Derick in his role as Director of the Unisa CCC, is also founding partner to the Global Educational Consortium on Corporate Citizenship as well as a member of the European Foundation for Management Development international task team on “Responsible Global Leadership”. He was appointed in January 2007 on the International Task Team to assist the Secretary General of the United Nations to develop Principles for Responsible Business Education.