[3] She witnessed the political upheaval caused by the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. and the Vietnam war protest movement, as well as being aware of international events such as the strikes in France threatening the government, and the Prague Spring.
[3] In 1972 Wilson moved to New Zealand, where she completed a Bachelor of Arts in political science at Victoria University of Wellington, in which she also took courses on te reo Māori.
[3] Wilson earned a Commonwealth Scholarship to attend St Antony’s College at the University of Oxford, where she completed a PhD titled Sanctions and South Africa.
[5] Wilson had met New Zealand prime minister David Lange during her anti-apartheid work, and she invited him to the 1985 Oxford Union debate "This House Believes Nuclear Weapons are Morally Indefensible", during which he gave his famous line about smelling uranium on his opponent's breath.
[3][5] Wilson was the CEO of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Durban for five years, during which time she set up the world's first HIV/AIDS and Business Centre, and was New Zealand's Honorary Consul in South Africa.