Mr Philip A Armstrong

Philip Armstrong is Director of Governance at Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance based in Geneva, Switzerland. He was formerly Senior Advisor: Corporate Governance at the International Finance Corporation, part of the World Bank Group, where he previously led the Global Corporate Governance Forum.


Philip is a widely acknowledged expert on corporate governance and was closely involved with the internationally-acclaimed King Reports on Corporate Governance in South Africa. He was instrumental in producing the Commonwealth Guidelines on corporate governance and served as an expert resource on corporate governance for the NEPAD initiative in Africa. He has received a number awards and accolades internationally, including an honorary doctorate in business administration from the Oxford Brookes University in the UK.


Philip Armstrong is a corporate secretary by profession and has had a distinguished and varied career in executive and senior management in a number of South Africa’s prominent listed companies, including holding the position of senior vice president: corporate secretary of Anglo American Corporation. He has participated with distinction on a number of boards of companies, governing bodies of professional institutions, and policy initiatives in South Africa and around the world, including currently serving on the board of governors of the International Corporate Governance Network (a coalition of investors representing assets under management of some USD26 trillion) and advisory bodies in Australia, Brazil, Turkey, India and elsewhere.


Philip is regularly cited in leading journals and publications for his work on corporate governance and is engaged in numerous corporate governance reform initiatives around the world led by the IFC.