John Brand has BA and LLB degrees from the University of the Witwatersrand and is an attorney of the High Court of South Africa. He is a member of the advisory board of the African Centre for Dispute Settlement at Stellenbosch University and is a member of the executive committee of the Dispute Settlement Accreditation Council.

John also serves as a member on the International Mediation Institute's (IMI) Independent Standards Commission and is an IMI Certified Mediator and a Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR UK) accredited mediator. He co-designed the conciliation and arbitration induction training for the South African Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) and has trained many of South Africa’s employment and commercial mediators and arbitrators for the past 15 years.

He was a member of the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) team of international experts appointed to design mediation training for developing countries. The ILO also commissioned Conflict Dynamics to design training material and to train parties and trainers from countries across the world in mutual gains negotiation.