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2015 Tutu Fellow Dr Kopano Matlwa Mabaso has started a new role as Senior Program Officer, Health, Africa at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  Kopano is a public health physician and novelist and the Founding Executive Director of the Grow Great Campaign, which seeks to achieve the goal of zero stunted growth among children in South Africa by 2030.  

At the Gates Foundation, Kopano says that together with colleagues in the Africa team she hopes to strengthen and advance the Foundation's regional and continental health portfolio, with a focus on primary health care and health systems strengthening.

In her Tutu Talk, titled The Activist-Scholar: Navigating the promises and pitfalls of policy-making, 2010 Tutu Fellow Robtel Neajai Pailey PhD speaks about her commitment to building progressive politics in her country and influencing public discourse and policy-making processes.

TutuTalks are a series collaboration between the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation and the African Leadership Institute, and it is a platform for African leaders who embody the values and ethics displayed by Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu throughout his life of service.

The Class of 2020 that was announced in March 2020 - and which was COVID delayed - finally graduated in London at the culmination of the second workshop at Oxford University and in London in July 2022.  They had participated in the first workshop at the historic location of Mont Fleur in Stellenbosch, South Africa in November 2021 – some 20 months after selection. 

The UK component of the programme is heavy on experiential and immersive learning exercises and the Fellows worked with real actors to learn how to communicate effectively as leaders.  In another experiential exercise, “Leadership Without Words”, they conducted a choir and learnt about non-verbal communication with their followers and, in the process, revealed their leadership styles.  They also explored their leadership archetypes and shadows through Shakespeare’s Henry the 5^th.

2018 Tutu Fellow Edzai Zvobwo has been appointed an Expert Contributor to the High-Level Panel on Emerging Technologies - APET - at the African Union's Development Agency, NEPAD. In 2016, African heads of government instructed NEPAD to establish a system to obtain expert contributions on matters of technology development and acquisition for economic development.

Edzai's role in the team will be to meaningfully research, analyze and present findings around emerging technologies and their potential benefit on the African continent.

In this Tutu Talk, 2011 Tutu Fellow and Ugandan peace activist Victor Ochen is using his voice of courageous leadership to champion the protection of rights of children and promote the culture of peace and tolerance.

Born in northern Uganda, he spent 21 years amidst violent conflict that displaced over three million people. More than 60,000 people - including his own brother - were forcefully abducted and recruited as child soldiers.

2015 Tutu Fellow Wiebe Boer PhD started as President of Calvin University - his Alma Mater - on 1 July 2022, and within a week, the university had signed a commitment to accelerate its transition to renewable energy.  Prior to accepting the presidency of the university, Wiebe was the CEO of All On, an off-grid energy impact investment fund for Nigeria seeded by Shell. 

With his expertise in the energy sector, Wiebe also serves on the UN Technical Working Group 5: Finance and Investment Board. Calvin University is making history in Michigan by becoming the first university in the state to pursue solar-as-a-service as an approach to accelerating the energy transition. 

2007 Tutu Fellow Ed Mabaya has been named Director of Cornell's Hubert H Humphrey Fellowship Program.  The Fullbright exchange program provides accomplished professionals from countries with emerging economies an international enrichment opportunity in leadership and public service. The program at Cornell focuses on three areas of interest - agriculture, rural development, and natural resource management. 

Ed has had a long and distinguished career in agricultural development and food security and most recently was the Associate Director at Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture, and Development.

2015 Tutu Fellow, Dr Uzo Iweala, has written a piece for Foreign Affairs magazine titled Nigeria's Second Independence - Why the Giant of Africa Needs to Start Over.  The piece is published in the July/August 2022 edition.  Uzo is the Chief Executive Officer of The Africa Center, a non-profit based in New York. 

In the piece, Uzo begins by saying that from the moment of it's independence in 1960, observers have questioned the country's viability as a multiethnic, multireligious state.  When the devastating Nigerian civil war broke out in 1967, that skepticism appeared warranted.  Since then, he says, the country's leadership has sought to preserve the unified state - even by force.  But what the country needs more than ever, is to reimagine its structures of power and governance.

In her Tutu Talk, 2015 Tutu Fellow Dr Kopano Matlwa Mabaso talks about the importance of enabling those around you to for meaningful change.  The South African public health physician and novelist says it is possible to make a difference by showing up and being the best you can be, being honest and working with integrity.  

TutuTalks are a series collaboration between the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation and the African Leadership Institute, and it is a platform for African leaders who embody the values and ethics displayed by Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu throughout his life of service.

2009 Tutu Fellow James Mwangi connects the dots between climate change and climate action in his TED Talk from June 2022 in New York.  He argues that with the planet missing the IPCC emissions goals that negatively impact climate change, it will be necessary to both push harder on that front, and then also remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere at a massive scale. He says that estimates suggest that the world will need to remove 5-16 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every single year by 2050. 

The Rift Valley, he says, provides a scalable way to remove carbon from the air - and end energy poverty.

2008 Tutu Fellow Elsie Kanza PhD, the Tanzanian Ambassador to the United States, has met US President Joe Biden in the Oval Office at the White House.  Elsie was appointed by President Samia Suluhu Hassan in May 2021 as one of 22 ambassadors, and in August of that year, assigned to the Embassy in Washington DC, one of the top postings in the diplomatic hierarchy.  She met President Biden on 24 June 2022. 

Elsie was formerly Head of Africa and Member of the Executive Committee at the World Economic Forum. She has worked in various capacities in the government of Tanzania, including in the Office of the Presidency, the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank.  In her role at the Embassy, she is also responsible for diplomatic connections in Mexico.

2015 Tutu Fellow Zukie Siyotula has been appointed as a Chairperson of the Board by York Timber Holdings Limited. York Timber Holdings is a Johannesburg Stock Exchange listed company that is the largest solid wood processor producing lumber and plywood in South Africa with a wholesale distribution network as well. Their clients include truss engineering manufacturers, corporate and independent retailers, remanufacturers, furniture manufacturers and construction contractors.

Zukie serves on a number of other Boards including African Bank, Bidvest Group, Toyota, Ogilvy & Mather, Salungano Group and Conduit Capital Limited. 

2017 Tutu Fellow Mimi Kalinda recounts how the big story that revolved around Archbishop Desmond Tutu as she was growing up was courage, and really being fearless. And also timely leadership. Leadership is contextual and time-sensitive, she says. In this Tutu Talk, hear how Mimi dedicates herself to building a critical mass of African stories that need to be told.  Mimi is a communications professional and entrepreneur. 

TutuTalks are a series collaboration between the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation and the African Leadership Institute, and it is a platform for African leaders who embody the values and ethics displayed by Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu throughout his life of service.

The Class of 2022 attended the first workshop of the Tutu Leadership Programme in Mont Fleur in April, returning AFLI to its normal programmatic year after a year in hiatus due to COVID. 

In this TutuTalk in the series collaboration between the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation and the African Leadership Institute, Hopewell Chin'ono, a 2008 Tutu Fellow and award-winning Zimbabwean journalist explains how he switched his goals from law to journalism and the ethical underpinning beneath that decision.

In his Tutu Talk titled "The Journalist's Calling - Exposing the truth in the face of oppression", Hopewell says journalists must be driven by a clear understanding of what is right and just to be able to report resolutely on the truth and endure the oppression that ensues.