Bernadette Moffat is the Executive Director of The ELMA Philanthropies Services (Africa), based in Cape Town, South Africa where she oversees the philanthropic work of the ELMA Group of Foundations in southern Africa. Bernadette serves on the Boards of The ELMA Philanthropies Services (US) Inc., The ELMA South Africa Foundation, and is a founding member and Chairperson for the ELMA Masana Foundation board. Bernadette also serves as a Trustee of the Discovery Foundation, which supports the education and training of medical specialists in South Africa and is on the board of Ilifa Labantwana, an organisation that seeks to ensure universal access and quality outcomes for young children in South Africa.

Prior to joining ELMA in 2006, Bernadette was chief executive officer of the Women’s Development Bank Trust, an organisation that promotes the socio-economic development, advancement, and empowerment of South African women. Previously Bernadette served as a consultant to the Commission on Gender Equality advising them on issues of women’s economic empowerment which published her work The Working Woman’s Manual a volume on women and labour law in South Africa (1996).

Bernadette has international experience as an entrepreneur and corporate lawyer having worked for a major law firm in Washington DC, consulted for the United Nations Development Programme and started family businesses. Honoured by France with the Ordre de Merité in 2007, she holds a magna cum laude BA degree from Wellesley College in the United States and a Juris Doctor degree from Columbia University also in the United States.