Kumi Naidoo the middle of his second term . Announcing his departure from the role of IED he said; "When I leave, I am looking forward to taking up an even more important role with Greenpeace: as a volunteer." Naidoo returned to South Africa to focus his work on energy justice. On 21 December 2017, Amnesty International appointed him as its next Secretary-General. In August 2018 Kumi succeed Salil Shetty, who served two terms in Amnesty International as the Secretary-General from 2010. The Secretary General is the leader and main spokesperson for Amnesty International and the Chief Executive of its International Secretariat.
Kumi Naidoo mass mobilisation, civil disobedience and for violating the state of emergency. This led him to having to go underground before finally deciding to live in exile in England. During this time Naidoo was a Rhodes scholar at the University of Oxford and he eventually earned a PhD in political sociology. Naidoo's doctorate was earned in the late 1990s, after he returned to England from South Africa. He suspended his studies at Oxford to return to South Africa in 1990 in order to conduct literacy campaigns after the release of Nelson Mandela from prison and Mandela's decision to run for president