H.E. Prof. Dr. Amb. Tal Edgars, PhD

Diplomacy and Consulting, in its traditional form, begins with observation and ends with advice. For H.E. Prof. Dr. Ambassador Tal Edgars, that arc is incomplete. As Group Executive Chairman of GBSH Consult Group, he leads one of the few firms built to operate inside government systems, not just around them. His role is hands-on, structural, and continuous, imposing a new standard: one that joins technical execution with political foresight, and structural reform with human systems. 

Over the course of his career, H.E. Prof. Ambassador Tal Edgars has held over 65 board, advisory, and high-level representation roles across multilateral bodies, sovereign institutions, think tanks, and regulatory platforms. His board memberships are operational command posts from which he has helped shape major continental initiatives, economic blueprints, and policy harmonisation strategies. He has served on the African Union Commission’s industrialisation and employment task forces, advised NEPAD on the PIDA programme, and contributed to infrastructure alignment within the BRICS-Africa framework. He sits on various Industry Advisory Councils and has acted as a senior liaison for intergovernmental negotiations on trade and investment treaties across SADC and COMESA. His advisory role at the African Leadership Council has included evaluating governance models for post-crisis states and advising on executive transitions within ministries of finance, planning, and infrastructure. He has also written extensively contributing to knowledge production around transformation and governance within a myriad of sectors and state agendas. 

Beyond the continent, Prof. Edgars has advised sovereign wealth funds, investment promotion authorities, and regulatory oversight boards from Southeast Asia to Latin America, often brought in during high-risk transitions where compliance, ESG integrity, or international funder trust had collapsed. He has represented countries at G77 summits, chaired working groups under the United Nations ECOSOC framework, and served on academic and innovation boards across Europe and North America, including research councils focused on governance technology and civic data interoperability. 

Under the leadership of H.E. Prof. Tal Edgars, GBSH Consult Group has become one of Africa’s most recognised and trusted consulting firms, earning accolades such as Business Management Consultancy of the Year and a top placement in the Financial Times’ Africa Growth Index. H.E. Prof. Tal Edgars has positioned the firm as a verified partner to the UN, World Bank, NATO, and the U.S. Government, entities that demand operational excellence and cross-border accountability. His direction has translated into measurable national impact: one enterprise initiative created over 15,000 jobs and mobilised $150 million in procurement, backed by real-time performance tracking. 

H.E. Prof. Edgars has also led governance reform in resource-intensive sectors, particularly extractives and infrastructure. In one case, Prof. Edgars chaired an inter-ministerial task force that overhauled a national content law, linking community benefit thresholds to operator compliance through a digital monitoring system. The model was nationally adopted, with enforcement embedded in the Ministry of Mines and the Auditor General’s Office. In another notable intervention, Prof. Edgars was appointed to lead the institutional audit of the Ministry of Infrastructure in a country following regime change. The task was not only to diagnose systemic breakdowns, but to draft and implement a phased recovery plan: redesigning inter-agency workflows, installing a procurement oversight system that met international funder standards, and retooling the ministry’s legal capacity to engage with international lenders. His reforms enabled the reinstatement of capital flows from development finance institutions within eight months, after three years of suspension due to governance risk. 

Outside sovereign contracts, Prof. Edgars supports investment governance for sovereign wealth entities, public-private infrastructure consortia, and development finance mechanisms. In one engagement, he led a structural audit of a state-owned industrial platform managing over $1 billion in assets. His team overhauled its governance structure, embedded ESG reporting protocols, and installed a shadow compliance unit that has since attracted capital from both climate funds and pension-backed development vehicles. 

Prof. Edgars’ public presence reflects the same orientation. At the Africa Investors Forum, he delivered not a vision statement, but a policy framework presented to over 150 diplomats and heads of state. At the University of South Africa, he delivered the inaugural Vice-Chancellor’s Lecture, outlining a concrete roadmap for building governance that matches the scale of the demographics and the complexity of the policies. On international platforms, from Harvard-linked podcasts to global development briefings, he delivers operational truths drawn from direct institutional engagement. 

On global boards and policy panels, H.E. Prof. Ambassador Tal Edgars is a voice for resilience, championing governance that’s accountable, future-focused, and grounded in real-world complexity.