Marlene Ogawa
Practice Committee Chair since 2025​
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​Member (Synergos South Africa) since 2023
My Story
Anthropologist with masters in urban development and candidate for Public and Urban Policy PhD. Ample experience in the nonprofit sector promoting civic engagement and participatory strategies in different countries and topics to achieve social capital and wellbeing.
Marlene Ogawa is Country Director at Synergos South Africa. At the heart of Marlene’s work is personal transformation for social change. The work emphasizes relational leadership and social connectedness for personal and collaborative systems change. Marlene has led the Social Connectedness Programme is South Africa, in partnership with Kim Samuel and the Samuel Centre for Social Connectedness. The Programme has built a wealth of knowledge through the network of organisations who have integrated social connectedness and belonging practices into their programmes. Marlene’s Bridging Leadership work centers building a sense of belonging for individuals in their systems and trusting relationships towards collective innovation for sustainable solutions. These facilitated processes include collaborating with strategic partners to influence practice, embodying compassionate leadership and supporting leaders to reconnect to purpose and committed, collective implementation. Marlene has worked with NGOs, government and the private sector in South Africa and the SADC Region. Her expertise is in creative and interactive strategic cross and multi sectoral leadership collaboration and partnership building process design and facilitation.