Fellows in the News

The ALI SA fellowship is a testament to the power of collective leadership. As external challenges reshape the landscape, we remain focused on solutions that strengthen our community and drive meaningful progress. Navigating the complexities of our global landscape reveals the significant impact that external factors can have on our progress. Recent decisions affecting aid to Africa underscore the...

We are proud to share that ALI SA Fellow Kuben Naidoo has been appointed to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Economic Advisory Council. This prestigious appointment comes as South Africa prepares to take on the G20 presidency, highlighting the critical role our Fellows play in shaping national policy. Kuben brings a wealth of experience to this role. Currently serving as the Head of Corporate Pay...

ALI SA Fellow Phathiswa Magopeni has been appointed as the new Executive Director of the Press Council of South Africa (PCSA), marking a significant milestone in her illustrious career and a pivotal moment for media accountability in South Africa. With over 20 years of strategic and editorial leadership experience, Phathiswa brings a wealth of knowledge to her new role. Her career includes notabl...

For 15 years, TEACH South Africa, an ALI SA Venture founded by Fellows Dr Mothomang Diaho and Dr Futhi Mtoba, has been transforming education by placing top graduates in under-resourced schools as Ambassadors. Through this initiative, ALI SA’s commitment to fostering leadership and driving social impact comes to life—ensuring that quality teaching reaches the learners who need it most. With o...

After help from ALI SA’s Venture Workshop, HEAL SA creator Mpadi Makgalo is ready to redefine access to mental health support in South Africa, while Fixlocal’s Garth Japhet will help you fix your neighbourhood. HEAL SA founder Mpadi Makgalo (ALI Class XI), has always believed in her venture and knew it stood a great chance of succeeding. She is more sure of victory now that she’...

The development finance institution’s board announced ALI Fellow Leslie Maasdorp as its new chief executive. ALI Fellow Leslie Maasdorp will be taking the reins later this year at British International Investments (BII) as its new Chief Executive Officer. BII – the UK government’s primary vehicle for delivering climate finance in emerging markets – invests about £1 billio...

Top editor and class XIV ALI SA Fellow Nwabisa Makunga has stepped up to become the head of one of South Africa’s largest journalism bodies. The Africa Leadership Initiative South Africa (ALI SA) is ecstatic to congratulate our Fellow, Nwabisa Makunga, on her appointment as chair of the South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF). Nwabisa is a class XIV ALI SA Fellow. She has been a...

Meet ALI South Africa’s new Executive Director. We are excited to announce that Lynette Chen, Class IX Tariro Fellow, will take the reins as Executive Director of ALI South Africa. Her unwavering commitment to this country and continent, combined with her track record of actively and successfully driving social and economic transformation in private sector-led initiatives, makes her the ide...

Anglo American aims for green with Bambili’s hydrogen fuel cell power Class XIII Akani Fellow Zanele Mavuso Mbatha’s Bambili Energy has embarked on a groundbreaking venture, partnering with Anglo American, independent power producer Engie and the South African government. Their shared vision involves conducting techno-economic analyses for hydrogen fuel cell-related projects, a novel ...

  Fellow Jabulani Sikhakhane voices his opinion on Godongwana’s mammoth task Finance Minister Enoch Gondongwana and his cabinet must take government finances more seriously. This is the opinion of Fellow Jabulani Sikhakhane (Class V Mayihlome) in an article that was published on budget speech day on businesslive.co.za, where he wrote: “These little Dutch boy approaches to running...

When ALI Fellow Reza Daniels (Class IX Tariro) took on the role of Director at the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit (SALDRU) last month, he did not waste time to share his vision for the unit. Reza plans to lead with determination – as a Fellow should – and he published his thoughts in the opening article of SALDRU’s January newsletter: https://lnkd.in/dytya3tX Befor...

Entries are now open for the 2023 FNF GreenPitch Challenge!  Innovators and entrepreneurs, this is your chance. Get ready to share your business idea and network with potential investors and important decision-makers.  CEO Mike Mulcahy (ALI Fellow Class XII: Isilimela) and his company GreenCape, in partnership with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF), invite innovators and entrepreneurs wi...

Janade du Plessis (ALI Fellow Class XIII: Mahube) is the co-managing partner of Africa Launch Ventures and Five35 Ventures. His ventures are implementing serious initiatives to see exponential tech growth in South Africa. His ventures are currently involved as: a Gitex investor at the first ever GITEX Conference in Africa, and partners in the WomHub Women in Tech (South Africa) to accelerate, sc...

Nomfundo Mogapi, ALI fellow from Class XII: Isilimela and CEO at the Centre for Mental Wellness and Leadership, shares the findings of the centre’s study on the mental health impact of COVID19 on education. Covid restrictions may have been lifted, but the psychological scars obtained in that period, are still impacting our learners. A decrease in social skills as a result of isolation durin...

We are overjoyed (and a bit speechless) to announce that ALL of our learners have passed Matric at Bulungula College! This is the first time in the history of Elliotdale to achieve a 100% pass rate. A big congratulations to our second-ever graduating class, who have proven that with focus, hard work and grit, anything is possible. To be the first school in our community to ever pass 100% of its l...

Anton Cartwright – Fellow from Class Akani and Director at Econologic & Credible Carbon comments on The Gaurdian article that suggested Verra’s avoided deforestation carbon (known as REDD+ in the carbon industry) to be “worthless”. The Guardian, who worked with Die Zeit’s and the privately-funded SourceMaterial, claims come amidst rising carbon market activity from the p...

Desnei Leaf-Camp, also a Class Akani fellow, is senior financial adviser at Xina Solar One. This solar power station has a 100 megawatt solar power capacity and they sell the solar energy they generate directly back to ESKOM. Xina Solar One’s efforts to support education in the four rural communities in its immediate vicinity, are truly commendable. The company published their first newslet...

By Fred Swaniker.  Ready for a sneak peek into the week we had? I always say that the African Leadership Group’s culture is our secret sauce, but experiencing it in person? One word: magical! Day 1 On Day 1 of our staff retreat in Kigali, we’ve managed to bring almost 200 members of our team to Rwanda to meet for the first time since 2020. We enjoyed taking the team to see a bit of our ...

By Dr Ntuthuko Bhengu This article highlights the complexities of healthcare service delivery. The UK National Health System is widely regarded as one of the most successful healthcare systems globally. It is also a huge source of pride and social cohesion for citizens. But an article in the Observer recently revealed the NHS trusts tell patients they can go private and jump hospital queues. Ob...

San Diego forms part of the boundary between Mexico and the USA. With its close proximity to another country, it is clear that diverse cultural realities have a deep impact on the true heartbeat of this city.  Our excursion to Chicano Park – known for its murals and seen as the emotional melting pot of Barrio Logan, San Diego’s oldest Mexican-American neighbourhood – revealed both the arti...

By Oscar van Heerden This past weekend, I attended the Kgalema Motlanthe Foundation (KMF) Inclusive Growth Forum in the Drakensberg, and boy, was it filled with excellent inputs from across the spectrum. The overall theme of the gathering, which meets every year, was “dialogue among equals”. The point of the dialogue is to see whether a cross-section of South Africans can not only iden...

In 30 years from now, around 2050, it is predicted that 50% of Sub-Saharan Africa’s population will be under the age of 25. According to Dr Mothomang Diaho, if we do not address individual well-being through an intergenerational lens, we would only continue to see further health declines. To take on the leadership roles of the future, Dr Diaho proposed that the cadre of future leaders would nee...

There’s no way around the facts, at their current rate of decline, African penguins are going to be functionally extinct in the wild within 20 years. By 2035, some colonies which have thrived on the South African coastline for hundreds of years will be no more. Without immediate action, a future without African penguins in the wild is certain. We can prevent this – we can say #NotOnOu...

On 6 October 2021 President Cyril Ramaphosa launched the inaugural WECONA where private sector, civil society and women’s organisations, businesswomen and government have partnered to form the Women Economic Assembly – an initiative to facilitate  the participation of women-owned businesses in core areas of the economy. www.wecona.co.za was excited about this year’s theme that revolved ...

Casablanca, Morocco, was the host city to The World Bank’s FASE Round Table from 11 to 12 October 2022, aiming to develop more accounting technicians in Africa to support  growth, accountability, and efficiency in the public and private sectors in Africa. ALI Fellow Patrick Kabuya (Class Mayihlome) and Lefaria Kinimi, both from the World Bank, shared the platform with Turkish accountant Be...

Financial exclusion takes many forms. Do you know what the average Early Childhood Development Centre looks like? While the concepts of early learning and adequate stimulation are buzz words in world education, South African toddlers and young children in need of pre-primary care often attend informal, privately owned centres run from a home. The owner often has no way of obtaining credit to prov...

Earlier this month (April 2022), the Constitutional Court handed down a precedent-setting judgement that has shaken the law-enforcement community of South Africa, and beyond.The woman who drove it, over a period of a decade, is Andy Kawa (Class VII: Mahube). The judgement in question relates to police treatment of victims of abuse. It confirms that the South African Police Service (SAPS) has duti...

Akona Matsau will assume the role of Chief Executive, Bidvest Services South Africa, on 1 April 2022. This is a newly-formed Group division that will focus on the continued growth of Bidvest’s services operations in South Africa. Akona has been a part of the Bidvest Group since 2013, when she was appointed as COO for Customised Solutions at Bidvest Facilities Management. She was later promo...

Native Merchants – The Building Of The Black Business Class In South Africa is Class 2 ALI Media Fellow, Phakamisa Ndzamela’s debut title. The book explores underwritten stories of black entrepreneurs during the 17th to early 20th centuries, giving insight into a time when black people built successful enterprises on their own account and not as labourers. The book is available from online re...

Roboticist Prof Arthur G.O. Mutambara who is an author, chartered engineer, and academic has been appointed as the executive director and full professor of the Institute for the Future of Knowledge (IFK) at the University of Johannesburg. The IFK is a cross-disciplinary ecosystem – an epistemological interface between the fourth Industrial Revolution and the Humanities. He will be establishing ...

Just under a year ago, in the first week of July 2020, the Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy gazetted the procurement of 2 000 MW of energy “from a range of energy source technologies”.   This month, a consortium including H1 Holdings, of which Reyburn Hendricks is Chief Executive, was given Preferred Bidder status. Through their ambitious solar hybrid storage projects, H1 Holdings (...

There is a fascinating concept at work in Like Water Is For Fish, a non-fiction book detailing the effectiveness of storytelling in communicating important messages and doing so in a mixture of memoir-style flashbacks and combinations of the perspectives of other individuals author Garth Japhet has met along the way. If it sounds like a hodge-podge, it doesn’t read like one, rather coming a...

In the early 2000s, ALI Fellow (Class IV: Kalipha) and South Africa’s “First Lady of Song”, Sibongile Khumalo, released her hit single, Mayihlome (https://bit.ly/2L7vsy3). It would go on to be amongst the most loved songs within her illustrious discography of globally-acclaimed hits. Yet there was more to that particular song than poetic lyrics sung in her matchless voice. It was more than j...

What a year it has been. It started well. From February 26-29, we had the rare joy of spending four days together at the second Africa Impact Forum. More than 100 Fellows from nine countries came together in Accra, Ghana, around the theme “Building to Last: Leadership vs Systems”. In the group there were 25 from ALI-SA; as always when we engage with our ALI colleagues from across the continen...

Class VII: Dinatla fellow, Tsakani Maluleke continues to make history as the first woman to occupy a senior position in the office of the Auditor-General (AG) South Africa. On October 20, 2020, she was unanimously recommended by Parliament’s Ad Hoc Committee to take over from the outgoing Auditor-General, Kimi Makwetu, whose seven-year term ends at the end of November. Since the Mbeki admini...

The Solidarity Fund has appointed Fellow Tandi Nzimande as Fund CEO. Nzimande was recommended as the CEO at a Board meeting held on October 22, 2020. It is her work in the development and empowerment fields which makes her the ideal candidate to lead the Fund especially now, as it enters a new phase that requires strong leadership to ensure mandates are met with efficiency, integrity, and passio...

The numbers of those in South Africa who are thought to now need food relief vary, depending on who you talk to [1]. Gift of the Givers director Dr Imtiaz Sooliman says maybe about 20-million. Andy du Plessis, manager of FoodForward, says it could be 30-million including those who were previously below the poverty line, those who lost their jobs during the pandemic lockdown, and those who lost ac...

Enzo Scarcella. Photo © Africa Leadership Initiative. ALI welcomes Enzo Scarcella as our new Board Chair after Adi Enthoven, who served on the ALI Board for a dozen years and had been Chair for the last five, ended his tenure.  Enzo Scarcella will ensure that the ALI board is effective in its task of setting and implementing the organisation’s direction and strategy. Enzo Scarcella is the Grou...

The University of Cape Town (UCT) has elected ALI Fellow and former Safika Holdings CFO Babalwa Ngonyama (Class VIII: Mahube) as the new chair of its council. Nazeema Mohamed will serve as deputy chair. In the words of UCT’s Vice-Chancellor Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng, the appointment is “historic” because it is the first time in 100 years that a woman chair serves on UCT’s Council. It i...

ALI would like to congratulate YALI Fellow Phathutshedzo Madima for his appointment as the new non-executive director and advisor of the Young African Entrepreneurs Institute (YAEI). The non-profit youth development organisation focuses on well-rounded career development by integrating employability, entrepreneurship and mentorship for diversified post-schooling opportunities in South Africa. Wit...

ALI Fellow Konehali Gugushe (Class X: XSeed) has been appointed as CEO of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund and the Trust. Her tenure started on the 4th of March 2020. She joins the Fund in the year of its 25th anniversary. Konehali’s responsibilities will include strengthening Madiba’s vision for his legacy organisations for children (the Fund, the Trust and NMCH) by promoting synergies, ...

Free mobile and web-based COVID-19 pre-screening symptom checker launched to help flatten the curve  YALI Fellows Jessica Chivinge, Rhobhi Matinyi Farai Chikumbu and their business associate Farai Chikumbu have founded a healthtech start-up called epione.net. epione.net is an end-to-end healthcare platform that seamlessly connects all stakeholders in the healthcare value chain for improved patie...

Mr Sabelo Dumezweni, Lomso’ Father; Mr Khulile Qamata, Nyanga SSS Principal; Dr Futhi Mtoba; Lomso Dumezweni; Lerato Mathenjwa; and Jethro Leshaba, TEACH Ambassador. TEACH South Africa (TEACH) attended the announcement of the 2019 National Senior Certificate (NSC) examination results at Vodacom on 06 January 2020. TEACH Ambassador Mr Jethro Leshaba and the principal from Nyanga Senior Secondary ...

We are honoured to announce that veteran financial journalist and ALI Media Fellow Sikonathi Mantshantsha is the new spokesperson for Eskom. The appointment was officially announced on Wednesday, the 22nd of January 2020. Sikonathi, who has spent over 15 years writing about the power utility, will be leading its media liaison team; a role he will take up on the 1st of February 2020. Speaking on t...

Remgro-controlled telecoms group Community Investment Ventures Holdings (CIVH), the parent company of Dark Fibre Africa and Vumatel, has appointed ALI Fellow Raymond Ndlovu as CEO. CIVH has ambitious growth plans, and Ndlovu’s primary role is to drive a diversified wholesale, open-access ICT infrastructure business. He knows the business well, as he has been investment executive and a manageme...

In October, the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) announced its new board, after a scrupulous review of its governance structures. ALI Fellow Tsakani Maluleke (Class VII: Dinatla) has been appointed to serve as the new chairperson of the board. SAICA’s mandate is to serve the interests of the chartered accountancy profession by upholding professional standards and integr...

South Africa has lost a literary disrupter, political activist and an ardent beacon of love, power, hope and truth. Sandile Dikeni passed away on Sunday, 10 November 2019. He was celebrated for being a prominent storyteller whose familiarity with racism, poverty and exclusion enabled him to use his words as ammunition to speak against the behemoth that was the apartheid regime.  Born in Victoria...

ALI Fellow Lesego Sennelo (Class X: Seed) is a qualified chartered accountant with a passion for human resource development and economic empowerment. Many of the roles that she has taken up in her career have focused on the empowerment and advancement of African women, particularly in the finance sector. Lesego served as the president of the African Women Chartered Accountants (AWCA) Forum from 2...

With over 15 years of experience in the financial services and investment space, ALI Fellow Refilwe Moloto (Class XI: Tekano) is making great strides in the media and broadcasting industry. A financial analyst turned media doyenne, Refilwe started her journey with radio as a business and finance news contributor on the Afternoon Drive with John Maythamon CapeTalk. Thereafter, she landed her own a...

ALI Fellow Linda Mateza (Class IX: Tariro) has been appointed as the new chief executive and principal officer of the Eskom Pension and Provident Fund (EPPF). The appointment comes as no surprise considering her wealth of experience and knowledge in managing pensions and investments across asset classes, including equities, bonds, property and money market investments. Linda holds a Master’...