Lifetime achievement award for Dr Giovanni Coci
- Wits Alumni Relations
Wits graduate honoured for a lifetime of service to medicine, enterprise, and community.
Dr Giovanni Coci (MBBCh 1968) has been awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Italian-South African Chamber of Trade and Industries at the ItalCham Business Excellence Awards 2026 in recognition of his contribution to both the medical profession and the Italian community in South Africa.
Dr Coci arrived in South Africa from Naples as a young boy with no knowledge of English. He said that he could never have imagined receiving such an honour and dedicated the award to his family and to the community that supported him throughout his journey.
In 2022 he was appointed “Cavaliere” Knight of the Order of the Star of Italy in recognition for the work he has done as an Italian expatriate in South Africa and he is recognised as one of the longstanding contributors to the Italian-South African community.
While studying medicine at Wits, he supported his mother’s pioneering ceramic import business – an early example of the dual path that would define much of his life. Together with his family, he later helped build a successful import-export enterprise linking Italy and Southern Africa.
His medical career took him from an Italian mission hospital in Eswatini to many years of specialist practice in Johannesburg. He later relocated to the Southern Cape, where he served for many years as the only specialist physician in the area, including during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Reflecting on his career, Dr Coci said excellence lies not in constant success, but rather in giving one’s best in all circumstances. He summarised this philosophy with the words: “To cure when possible, to relieve often, to comfort always.”
Additional sources: Italcham Business Excellence Awards