Elmi Muller is a transplant surgeon, clinician-scientist, academic leader and keynote speaker who brings the high-stakes world of medicine into the boardroom. As Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at Stellenbosch University, she leads one of Africa’s largest tertiary institutions for healthcare professional training, while continuing her work as an active transplant surgeon. With two decades of experience in transplant teams, Elmi offers audiences a rare perspective on leadership, decision-making, teamwork and transformation when the stakes are exceptionally high.

An internationally recognised leader in transplantation, Elmi is a past President of The Transplantation Society and chairs the Lancet Commission on Transplantation. She is also an NRF A1-rated clinician-scientist whose work has helped influence transplant practice and policy, including pioneering HIV-positive donor to HIV-positive recipient kidney transplantation. Her career combines clinical excellence with strategic leadership, research, collaboration and a deep understanding of how complex organisations perform under pressure.

Her flagship keynote, How to Do a Liver Transplant, takes audiences through the stages of a liver transplant and reveals the powerful business lessons hidden within the operating theatre. From choosing the right patient and building the right team to managing infrastructure, legacy systems, parallel work, integration, readiness, execution and closure, Elmi demonstrates how the realities of high-stakes surgery mirror the challenges leaders face every day. The central message is simple: almost everything that hurts in a boardroom hurts in an operating theatre first, and faster.

Elmi also speaks on courageous leadership, resilience, decision-making under uncertainty, transformation and the importance of the invisible work that makes exceptional outcomes possible. Her presentations are intellectually rigorous, highly practical and designed to leave audiences with insights they can apply long after the event. Whether addressing business leaders, healthcare professionals or academic audiences, Elmi challenges people to think differently about performance, preparation, trust and care — showing that what carries an operation, a team or an organisation is rarely brilliance alone, but disciplined execution and thoughtful leadership.

Keynote Topics:

• How to Do a Liver Transplant
• The Losses No One Records
• Bearing the Unbearable

*Healthcare-specific lectures and special addresses are also available on request.