On a warm evening late January 2026 in Johannesburg, the ALI South Africa community gathered to welcome Class XVI into a fellowship that asks a simple but demanding question: what will your leadership mean for generations to come? The atmosphere was exciting and vibrant, with the room buzzing from the moment alumni Fellows and the newly selected Class XVI members began mingling with each other.
Enzo Scarcella
In his opening remarks, ALI SA Fellow and board director Enzo Scarcella (Class VIII: Mahube) traced the lineage of ALI back to Aspen in the 1950s, where a small group of thinkers created space for accomplished leaders to step away from daily pressures and wrestle with the fundamental questions of human behaviour and leadership in a volatile world. From that seed grew the Aspen Institute and, in time, the Aspen Global Leadership Network, which gave rise to the Africa Leadership Initiative through founders including Isaac Shongwe, the late Ali Mufuruki, Ken Ofori-Atta, Romeo Rodrigues, Keith Berwick and Peter Reiling.
A Fellowship for Life, Not A Programme with End
Through a video message from Los Angeles, Dar Vanderbeck, Vice President of the Aspen Global Leadership Network and ALI SA board director, framed the evening as the beginning of a lifelong journey rather than an 18 month programme. She pointed out that at a time when technological change outpaces ethical frameworks and trust in institutions is eroding, the call for humanistic, ethical leadership is louder than ever.
Dar invited Class XVI to “show up fully” – to be vulnerable, stay curious and lean into the discomfort of having their assumptions challenged. She emphasised that ALI brings together leaders who are like‑hearted but not like‑minded, insisting that enduring solutions emerge from genuine dialogue across difference rather than from echo chambers.
When ALI SA founder Isaac Shongwe took the podium, he joined the dots between his own Henry Crown Fellowship at Aspen in 2002 and the creation of the Africa Leadership Initiative South Africa a year later. He spoke about the early “Friends of Isaac” class and his conviction that if you bring good people together who want to do good in society, something special will happen.
Isaac did not shy away from a sober assessment of South Africa three decades after the “new dawn” of 1994, expressing sadness at the gap between the country’s early promise and present realities. Yet his message to Class XVI was unequivocal: “Deep in my soul, I believe that you’re the people we’ve been waiting for,” he said, urging Fellows to bring the full weight of their skills, experience and conscience to the service of the country and continent. He reminded the room that there is “no such thing as a free lunch” in this fellowship; privilege comes with responsibility. Isaac reaffirmed his long‑held belief that over time, the Africa Leadership Initiative will produce a head of state in South Africa, surrounded by a cadre of community‑spirited leaders who think beyond themselves and act for the Good Society.
Lynette Chen
ALI SA Executive Director and Fellow from Class IX: Tariro Lynette Chen positioned the evening as both celebration and orientation for Class XVI, framing the fellowship as a structured pause during demanding careers. Over the next 18 months, Fellows will work through classic and contemporary texts, interrogating ideas of power, justice, freedom, legacy and service while listening deeply to one another across sectoral and ideological lines. Lynette reframed what used to be called “projects” as leadership ventures and now as a lifelong impact journey, emphasising that the aim is not a one‑off initiative to “tick the box” but a sustained pattern of active leadership. She pointed to Fellows already on their third or fourth venture, including work such as Fixlocal and HEAL SA’s free mental health counselling for learners and new community book stalls that expand access to reading in multiple languages. To support this, ALI SA is launching the ALI SA Impact Hub that will walk alongside Fellows and alumni as they design, test, implement and grow ventures that respond to societal needs. A dedicated Venture Committee will help Fellows turn big, audacious ideas into concrete, implementable plans that can scale over time.
and Giles Gillett
The dinner also showcased how ventures can shift entire systems when Fellows collaborate around a shared purpose. Class VIII: Mahube Fellows Giles Gillett and Alison Bengtson shared the story of the Data Driven Districts (DDD) programme, a partnership between government, civil society and funders that has changed the way education data is collected and used in South Africa. Fellows Giles Gillett and Alison Bengtson were not alone in this work; Class XII: Isilimela Fellow Dean Villet, Country Director for the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation in South Africa, has also played a key role through the foundation’s long-term support of the Data Driven Districts venture. What began as a pilot in five districts in Gauteng, supported by the New Leaders Foundation and the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, has grown into a national system that aggregates school-level data and returns it to principals and officials within 12 to 24 hours for decision-making.
One Eastern Cape principal, for example, used DDD data to identify patterns in teacher absence linked to taxi routes and then negotiated route changes with local taxi bosses, recovering precious learning time for learners. Alison reflected on how rare and valuable it is for NGO, business and government partnerships to be deeply aligned with government priorities and underpinned by trust. She credited ALI SA with giving her the courage to be bolder in a complex public system and with helping her, Giles and Dean to build the kind of relationship that could carry a venture from pilot to national impact.
Nozipho Tshabalala
Later in the evening, ALI SA Board director and Class XIII Akani Fellow, conversation strategist and author Nozipho Tshabalala, brought the room back to the inner work of leadership through poetry and story. She recited David Whyte’s poem “Sometimes”, using it as an invitation for Class XVI to see this moment as “a place whose only task is to trouble you with tiny but frightening requests” that can make or unmake a life.
Nozipho traced her own journey from a young anchor at CNBC Africa focused on performance and profile, to a Fellow who came to understand the privilege and responsibility of a voice that reached 48 million viewers across the continent. Through the ALI Young Leaders and later ALI fellowships, she shifted from covering profit margins to interrogating inequality, precarious work and the lived experience behind the numbers, eventually founding “The Conversation Strategists” to support leaders in high‑stakes contexts.
Quoting marathon great Eliud Kipchoge, she captured the heart of the ALI ethos: “I’m no longer concerned with being the best in the world. The only thing that concerns me is being the best for the world.” For Nozipho, ventures are less about a single output and more about a lifelong practice of active leadership that may involve starting new initiatives, amplifying others’ work or stepping into entirely new arenas when the moment demands it.
As the formal speeches ended, the spotlight moved to Class XVI, who introduced themselves and named the questions that keep them awake at night. The cohort spans sectors and geographies: education, banking, law, journalism, development, technology, health, energy, investment management, public policy and entrepreneurship, with roots from villages in rural South Africa to Nigeria, Lesotho and beyond.
Their passions are as diverse as their professions, but what united them was a shared restlessness about inequality, exclusion and wasted potential and a shared belief that South Africa and the continent can do better than current trajectories suggest.
In the evening’s closing remarks, FirstRand Empowerment Foundation’s Head of Social Investing and Class X: XSeed Fellow Konehali Gugushe, affirmed the significance of ALI SA reaching a 16th cohort and the depth of discernment that goes into each selection. She highlighted the long‑term partnership between FirstRand and ALI SA, recognising that ventures such as Data Driven Districts only scale when funders, government and Fellows commit to the long game. She acknowledged that the partnership with ALI SA created a multiplier effect for First Rand Empowerment Foundation’s quest to support sustainable social and economic programmes for positive impact in South Africa.Across the evening, a clear message emerged for Class XVI:
To relive the energy of the evening, view the photos from the welcome dinner HERE.
