Ethics Institute of South Africa

Organizational Ethics Servicestei.org.za

The Ethics Institute of South Africa (TEI) is an independent non-profit professional services organisation, established in 1999 in Pretoria, that delivers ethics training, officer certification, organisational assessments, and advisory services to South African government departments, state-owned enterprises, and private corporates.

Company typePrivate
Founded1999
HeadquartersPretoria, South Africa
Headcount11–50
GTM typeB2B
OfferingServices

What Ethics Institute of South Africa does

The Ethics Institute of South Africa (TEI), formally The Ethics Institute NPC, is an independent non-profit company established in 1999 and headquartered in Pretoria, Gauteng. It operates as a professional services organisation dedicated to strengthening ethical leadership across South African public sector, state-owned enterprises, and private corporates. Its service portfolio centres on the Ethics Officer Certification Programme (EOCP), which has certified over 1,700 professionals, alongside one-day public workshops (Behavioural Ethics, Ethics of AI), proprietary organisational assessments (Ethics Risk, Ethical Culture, Ethics Management Maturity) scored using the in-house Ethics Culture Maturity Index (ECMI), and advisory engagements. The organisation also publishes research surveys (Public Sector Ethics Survey, South African Business Ethics Survey, Citizens' Bribery Survey, SEC Trends Survey), maintains a monthly newsletter, podcast series, webinars, and an e-learning platform, and offers Safe Reporting Service Provider Certification for whistleblowing hotlines.

Revenue is generated through per-event workshop fees priced in South African Rand (R3,965 for supporters/members, R4,646 for non-members, R3,570 for students, with group discounts up to 10%), recurring supporter/membership subscriptions, ethics officer certification charges, and fee-based assessment and advisory engagements. Go-to-market is sales-led and direct, with channel partnerships across a network of professional bodies (ACFE, IoDSA, IRMSA, SAIPA, SABPP, IIA SA, CIGFARO, FPI, ICFP, BEN-Africa, SBI, SIOPSA) offering member discounts and CPD accreditation. Multi-year strategic partnerships with the Department of Cooperative Governance (DCoG), the South African Local Government Association (SALGA), the Moral Regeneration Movement (MRM), and the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) anchor the organisation's public-sector footprint, most visibly through the Local Government Ethical Leadership Initiative (LGELI) and the Code for Ethical Leadership in Local Government adopted by 51+ municipalities since its March 2024 launch.

The organisation is governed by a Board of Directors and led by a small executive team — CEO Prof. Deon Rossouw (also Extraordinary Professor in Philosophy at Stellenbosch University), Prof. Leon van Vuuren (Executive: Organisational Ethics; adjunct/extraordinary professor at UCT and Stellenbosch), Dantia Richards (Governance and Communications Executive; Information Officer for POPI & PAIA), Dr Paul Vorster (Senior Research Specialist), Fatima Rawat (Senior Ethics Subject Matter Expert), and Kris Dobie (Senior Manager: Organisational Ethics). TEI holds B-BBEE Level 4 contributor status, maintains PAIA and POPIA compliance, and reports engagement across 70+ countries through its learning and development programmes.

Ethics Institute of South Africa firmographics

Firmographics

Name: Ethics Institute of South Africa
Legal name: The Ethics Institute NPC
Website: https://tei.org.za
Company type: Private
Founded year: 1999
Operating status: Operating
Headcount range: 11–50 employees
Short description: The Ethics Institute of South Africa (TEI) is an independent non-profit professional services organisation, established in 1999 in Pretoria, that delivers ethics training, officer certification, organisational assessments, and advisory services to South African government departments, state-owned enterprises, and private corporates.
Ownership category
akta.pro rank

Ethics Institute of South Africa industry classification

Industry

Product category: Organizational Ethics Services
NAICS: Educational Services (611)
SIC: Services-Educational Services (8200), Services-Membership Organizations (8600)
akta.pro primary industry: Ethics, Integrity & Whistleblowing Program Advisory (BPAHAFAI)
akta.pro secondary industries: Code of Conduct & Business Ethics (EDABADAB), Regulatory Readiness & Audit Automation (e.g., EU AI Act, NIST AI RMF, ISO/IEC 42001) (HDAAAMAE)

Keywords

Ethics training services
Organizational ethics consulting
Ethics certification programmes
Governance advisory services
Ethics risk assessments

Where Ethics Institute of South Africa is headquartered

Location

Headquarters

HQ city: Pretoria
HQ country: South Africa
HQ region: Africa

Offices1 record

Markets served

Ethics Institute of South Africa business model

Business model

GTM type: B2B
Offering type: Services
Cost components: Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Others

Revenue model

Training and Workshop Fees: Revenue from one-day workshops on Behavioural Ethics, Ethics of AI, and other ethics topics. Workshops are priced differently for supporters/members, non-members, and students.
Ethics Officer Certification Programme: Professional certification programme for individuals seeking to become Certified Ethics Officers, contributing to the 1700+ professionals already certified.
Organisational Ethics Assessments: Fee-based ethics risk assessments, ethical culture assessments, and ethics management maturity assessments for organisations.
Supporter Subscription: Annual supporter subscription programme offering benefits including discounted training rates and access to resources.

Pricing tiers

Model	Billing	Price
Subscription	Per event	Supporters/Members Price
One time/ perpetual license	Per event	Non-supporters/Non-Members Price
Other	Per event	Full-time Students
Other	Per event	Group Discount - 3+ Delegates
Other	Per event	Group Discount - 6+ Delegates

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels7 records

Ethics Institute of South Africa product offering

Product offering

Core offering

The Ethics Institute (TEI) is an independent non-profit professional services organisation that delivers ethics training programmes, organisational ethics assessments, ethics officer certification, and advisory services. Its flagship offering is the Ethics Officer Certification Programme (EOCP), complemented by one-day workshops (Behavioural Ethics, Ethics of AI), ethics risk/culture/maturity assessments scored against the proprietary Ethics Culture Maturity Index (ECMI), safe reporting/whistleblowing hotline provider certifications, and tailored advisory engagements for public sector bodies, state-owned enterprises, and private corporations.

Product overview

The Ethics Institute (TEI) is a professional services organisation offering a comprehensive suite of ethics management products and services. The core flagship offering is the Ethics Officer Certification Programme (EOCP), which has certified over 1,700 professionals. Training programmes include Behavioural Ethics Training and The Ethics of AI Workshop, delivered as one-day workshops. Assessment services include Ethics Risk Assessment, Ethical Culture Assessment, and Ethics Management Maturity Assessment, all using the proprietary Ethics Culture Maturity Index (ECMI) scoring system. The organisation also provides research publications including the Public Sector Ethics Survey, South African Business Ethics Survey (SABES), South African Citizens' Bribery Survey, and Social and Ethics Committee Trends Survey. Content resources include e-learning modules, video series, publications, a monthly newsletter, webinars, and podcasts. The organisation also developed the Code for Ethical Leadership in Local Government and offers Safe Reporting Service Provider Certification for whistleblowing hotlines.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

Ethics Officer Certification Programme (EOCP)

Quantifiable outcome

92.3% of organisations showed measurable improvement in ECMI scores following assessment and interventions
+4 more outcomes

Companies that use Ethics Institute of South Africa

Customer profile

Named customers8 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Ethics Institute of South Africa technology and API

Technology

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API: No
API docs
API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Ethics Institute of South Africa partnerships and signals

Strategic signal

Partnerships

Seven partnerships are on record, tiered flagship, core and minor.

Department of Cooperative Governance (DCoG)flagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2022National government department collaborating on the Local Government Ethical Leadership Initiative (LGELI), a multi-year project to foster ethical leadership in South African municipalities. Partnership led to development of the Code for Ethical Leadership in Local Government, officially launched in March 2024. DCoG participates in research and consultation processes.
South African Local Government Association (SALGA)flagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2022National association representing municipalities as key partner in the Local Government Ethical Leadership Initiative (LGELI). SALGA participates in the development and promotion of the Code for Ethical Leadership in Local Government, working towards adoption by member municipalities.
Moral Regeneration Movement (MRM)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2022Civil society organisation partnering on the Local Government Ethical Leadership Initiative (LGELI), contributing to the moral regeneration agenda in South African local government through the Code for Ethical Leadership.
Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2022Government department partnering with TEI to conduct the Public Sector Ethics Survey, assessing the state of ethics and ethics management in the South African public sector through online surveys of public servants.
SiemensminorGTM or Marketing Partner · 1 January 2022Sponsored the Ethical Leadership Symposium 2022 focused on ethical leadership in State-Owned Entities, with the event featuring Pravin Gordhan as opening speaker and addressing Zondo Commission findings.
Institute of Directors in South Africa (IoDSA)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerProfessional body for directors partnering with TEI on the Social and Ethics Committee Trends Survey, a joint project gathering information about the nature, effectiveness and impact of SECs operating in South Africa.
Professional Body Network (ACFE, BEN-Africa, CIGFARO, FPI, ICFP, IIA SA, IoDSA, IRMSA, SABPP, SAIPA, SBI, SIOPSA)coreChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorNetwork of professional bodies offering member discounts on TEI training programmes and workshops. Members receive preferential pricing on courses and may claim CPD points from their respective professional bodies.

Scale indicators7 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Ethics Institute of South Africa competitors and assessment

Company assessment

Broad incumbents

LRN Corporation: Provider of ethics & compliance training, advisory, and culture programmes to global enterprises; overlaps with TEI's training and culture assessment offerings but at significantly larger scale and with platform delivery.
NAVEX Global: Global incumbent in ethics & compliance software, offering whistleblowing hotlines, policy management and training — competes with TEI's whistleblowing certification and advisory practices but as part of a broader SaaS portfolio.

Direct peers

The Ethics Centre: Australia's national ethics body, providing advisory, training and a survey-based ethics index; the closest geographic-analog peer to TEI's role as a single-country ethics thought leader and certification provider.
Ethics & Compliance Initiative (ECI): US-based nonprofit offering ethics culture assessments, benchmarking surveys (Global Business Ethics Survey), and practitioner resources — directly comparable to TEI's ECMI assessments, SABES-style surveys, and certified practitioner community.
Institute of Business Ethics (IBE): UK charity that advises businesses on ethics, publishes ethics resources, and produces the European Business Ethics Survey — mirroring TEI's combination of advisory, training, and national-level business ethics survey offerings.

Emerging players

WhistleBlower Security: Operates certified whistleblowing hotlines and ethics reporting services — directly comparable to the hotline providers (Advance Call, Vuvuzela, Whistle Blowers, Deloitte Tip-offs Anonymous) that TEI currently certifies.
Egality: Netherlands-based integrity and ethics advisory firm serving European organisations with integrity investigations, training, and culture work — overlaps with TEI's advisory, training, and culture assessment offerings.

Others

Transparency International: Global anti-corruption nonprofit producing the Corruption Perceptions Index and adjacent research; comparable to TEI on the research/thought-leadership axis and on addressing the corruption and governance failures TEI's clients face.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

Ethics Institute of South Africa compliance and trust

Trust signal

Compliance6 records

Ethics Institute of South Africa financial estimates

Financial estimate

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Ethics Institute of South Africa leadership team

Management profile

Number of profiles

Profiles6 records

Ethics Institute of South Africa funding detail

Funding detail

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Ethics Institute of South Africa M&A and investment

M&A and investment

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Ethics Institute of South Africa

What does Ethics Institute of South Africa do?

Is Ethics Institute of South Africa a public or private company?

Ethics Institute of South Africa is a private company. It is classified as nonprofit foundation owned and is currently operating.

When was Ethics Institute of South Africa founded?

Ethics Institute of South Africa was founded in 1999. It employs 11 to 50 people.

Where is Ethics Institute of South Africa based?

Ethics Institute of South Africa is headquartered in Pretoria, South Africa, in the Africa region.

How does Ethics Institute of South Africa make money?

Four revenue lines are on record. Training and Workshop Fees are the primary driver. The others are ethics Officer Certification Programme, organisational Ethics Assessments and supporter Subscription.

Who are Ethics Institute of South Africa's main competitors?

Broad incumbents on record are LRN Corporation and NAVEX Global. Direct peers are The Ethics Centre, Ethics & Compliance Initiative (ECI) and Institute of Business Ethics (IBE). Emerging players are WhistleBlower Security and Egality. Transparency International is listed as an others.

Does Ethics Institute of South Africa have an API?

No public API is recorded for Ethics Institute of South Africa.

What industry is Ethics Institute of South Africa in?

Ethics Institute of South Africa's product category is Organizational Ethics Services. Its primary akta.pro industry code is BPAHAFAI, Ethics, Integrity & Whistleblowing Program Advisory, with a secondary code of EDABADAB, Code of Conduct & Business Ethics. Its NAICS code is 611 and its SIC code is 8200.