Assertive, generous, humble, incisive, kind, fierce, humorous and mischievous are some of the words Achmat’s family, friends, and colleagues used to describe Achmat. Audrey, Achmat’s wife and partner of thirty years, remembers:

“For all the high profile jobs he had, he was quite an extreme introvert … He really liked his own space and peace and quiet and reading and then he had this other life where he had to be almost a different person. I remember being completely stunned at how he could just stand up and speak so eloquently to large audiences, for someone I had experienced as quite an introvert, he got a lot of energy from his inner life. He was just incredibly eloquent, could speak so beautifully off-the-cuff and always had so many profound things to say … and then he just delivered them to the world.”