Hylton Appelbaum has BA and LLB degrees from the University of the Witwatersrand.

He is an Executive Director of the Liberty Group Limited and its former holding company, Liberty Investors Limited and is Executive Trustee of The Liberty Foundation and The Liberty Educational Foundation.

Hylton is a trustee of Kagiso Trust, which was established by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Rev Beyers Naude, Rev Frank Chikane, Prof Jakes Gerwel and other leaders during the height of mass mobilisation and popular participation in the struggle against apartheid for the purpose of channelling funds from the European Community's Special Programme for the Victims of Apartheid. Since 1986 Kagiso Trust has injected over R 1,25 billion of grant funds into various development projects in the fields of training, health, education, small business development and agriculture across the county. Over the past 10 years Kagiso Trust has pioneered the promotion of sustainable development and has become a leader in black economic empowerment ventures. Hylton was one of the founder directors of Kagiso Trust Investment Company (Proprietary) Limited and is a director of its listed subsidiary, Kagiso Media Limited.

In the educational arena Hylton is a director of Learning Channel (Proprietary) Limited. He founded, and is Chairman of, the Mindset Network (a non-profit section 21 company) and its wholly owned subsidiary Mindset Logistics (Proprietary) Limited. Mindset broadcasts a range of television channels with print and Internet support delivering a free schooling, health and livelihood education service to Africa. Hylton also serves on the boards of the Western Cape Educational Trust and The Distance Learning Trust.

Hylton is Executive Trustee of The Donald Gordon Foundation, a family foundation established in 1971 and today the largest private philanthropy in Africa. He is a member of the advisory board of The Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre (Pty) Limited, a tertiary teaching hospital which is wholly owned by The University Of The Witwatersrand.

He is a director of The Synergos Institute, a US based non-profit which develops effective, sustainable and locally rooted solutions to poverty. He is a member of Council of the University of The Witwatersrand, and is a trustee of the Wits Law School Endowment Appeal.

Hylton is a member of PriceWaterhouseCoopers' Corporate Social Responsibility Board and is a trustee, and judge, of the national Impumelelo Innovations Award Trust and a trustee of the Helen Suzman Foundation. He is also a trustee of The Nelson Mandela Children's Fund and sits on its allocations committee.

Hylton is Chairman of Classic fM South Africa (Proprietary) Limited which he founded in 1997.