Andrew Russell

Andrew Russell was born in Cape Town in 1964, the year Nelson Mandela was sent to Robben Island. He completed his schooling in 1982 – the same year Mandela was moved off Robben Island to Pollsmoor Prison.

In 2006 Russell founded a sports related charity called sport4kids, raising funds and collecting sports equipment for young disadvantaged boys and girls looking for opportunities to participate in sport. The charity has just completed funding one youngster on a bursary at a High School in Cape Town.

In July 2018, Christo Brand, one of Nelson Mandela’s former prison guards, asked Russell to be his Business Manager and they set out on an exciting adventure into the unknown to introduce the world to Christo and share his story.

In October 2023 Russell published his book, "The Leadership We Need – Lessons for Today from Nelson Mandela". A portion of the proceeds from the sale of every copy of his book will go to sport4kids. Russell will be a guest lecturer on the Queen Mary 2 next month. He has addressed a number of different groups both here in South Africa and in the USA during a speaking tour there in November 2023. These included U Mass Boston, The Henry Ford Museum and the San Antonio Spurs amongst others.

He is also the editor of the second edition of Christo Brand’s book called Doing life with "Mandela: My Prisoner, My Friend" which was published in September 2022.