Professor Kurt April is the Allan Gray Chair, an Endowed Professorship, and Director of the Allan Gray Centre for Values-Based Leadership, specialising in Leadership, Diversity and Inclusion at the University of Cape Town's Graduate School of Business (South Africa, 1998-present), and is Adjunct Faculty at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford (UK, 2001-present). 

Previously, he was a Faculty Member of Duke Corporate Education, Duke University (USA, 2008-2022), Visiting Professor at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (Netherlands, 2001-2013), Research Fellow of Hult-Ashridge Business School (UK, 2004-2016), Visiting Professor at the University of Amsterdam UvA (Netherlands, 2004-2007), Visiting Professor at London Metropolitan University (UK, 2014-2017), was a Board Member of the Unit for Intercultural and Diversity Studies (iNCUDISA, UCT) where he helped foster societal transformation and collaborated with New York and Antioch Universities (USA) and the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands), and was the Founding Academic Director of the USA-SA Centre for Leadership and Public Values (CLPV) in conjunction with the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University (USA).

Kurt is a Series Editorial Board Member of Palgrave (Springer) on Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and  Indigenisation in Business (Switzerland), and Associate Editor for Gender, Work and Organization (GWO) (UK), Associate Editor for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal (EDI) (UK), and an Associate Editor for Design Science (DS) (UK).

Prior to entering academia, April worked in the financial services, defence, rail transport and energy sectors.

Kurt holds a doctoral degree in IT Strategy & Economics (Ph.D), Certificate in Japanese Production, Masters degree in Electronic Engineering (MSc(Eng)), Higher Diploma in Education (HDE), Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering (BSc(Eng)), National Trade Test (Electronic Mechanician), National N6 Diploma in Electronic Engineering (NDip (EE)), National N6 Diploma in Logic Systems (NDip (LS)), completed at the University of Cape Town (South Africa), Oxford University (UK), Wingfield College (South Africa), Olifantsfontein (South Africa), and AOTS Nagoya (Japan).

He has published 12 books, 37 peer-reviewed book chapters with global publishers, and over 100 peer-reviewed papers in journals such as Organization, Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Journal of Knowledge Management, Journal of Intellectual Capital, Journal of Managerial Psychology, and Journal of Cleaner Production.