Prof Renata Schoeman (www.renataschoeman.co.za) has been in full-time private practice as a general psychiatrist (child, adolescent, and adult psychiatry) since 2008, currently based in Oude Westhof (Bellville). As a psychiatrist, she has special interests in cognition (i.e., disorders affecting attention, concentration, learning and memory – such as ADHD), eating disorders, mood disorders and anxiety disorders.

Renata also holds appointments as associate professor in Leadership (USB), and as head of the Healthcare Leadership MBA specialization stream. She serves on the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Mental Health (South Africa),where she chairs the sub-committee on Child, Adolescent and Family Mental Health. She serves on the advisory boards of various pharmaceutical companies, and previously as a director of the Psychiatric Management Group (PsychMG). She is the convenor of the South African Society of Psychiatrist (SASOP) special interest group for ADHD, and co-founder of the Goldilocks and The Bear Foundation (www.gb4adhd.co.za).

She is passionate about corporate mental health awareness and uses her neuroscience background to assist leaders in equipping them to become balanced, healthy, and dynamic leaders that take their own and their team’s emotional, intellectual, social health and physical needs into account.  Renata is academically active and enjoys research and collaborative work. She has co-authored “All of these things are important to me” and has published in many peer-reviewed journals and has presented at local and international congresses. She is regularly invited to present at conferences and to engage with the media. 

During her post-graduate studies, she trained at Harvard, Boston in neurocognition and neuroimaging. Her awards include, amongst others, the Young Minds in Psychiatry award from the American Psychiatric Association, the Discovery Foundation Fellowship award, a Thuthuka award from the NRF, and an MRC Fellowship. She also received the Top MBA student award and the Director’s award from USB for 2015. She was a finalist for the Businesswomen’s Association of South Africa’s Businesswoman of the Year Award for 2016 and received the Excellence in Media Work award from SASOP during 2016.  During 2018 the Goldilocks and The Bear Foundation received the SASOP Award for Community Service. In both 2018 and 2019 she has received the Media Excellence Award as Thought Leader, while in 2019 she has also received the Media Excellence Award as Newsmaker from the University of Stellenbosch. She was also honoured as a Mental Health Hero by the Discovery Foundation during 2019, as well as by Welum in 2021. In 2022, she was recognised by Prestige South Africa as Psychiatrist of the Year.