Latest News

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.

The Class of 2020 attended their first workshop in the Tutu Fellowship Programme at Mont Fleur in South Africa in November 2021, delayed more than a year by the COVID pandemic.  It was an immersive and emotional experience for the group, with a visit to the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation, now home to a permanent and poignant exhibition of our late Founding Patron.

The tour stimulated deep reflection on courage, justice, values, servant leadership and the sacrifices that leaders must make. Speakers included Monica Geingos, Trevor Manuel, Prof Carlos Lopes, and Valter Adao.

In March 2020, the African Leadership Institute announced the Associates who had been selected for the 2020 Class of the Tutu Fellowship programme.  As has been the case with previous cohorts, the people selected were exceptional emerging African leaders. AFLI received more than 300 nominees of outstanding quality from 36 African countries, from which the cohort was selected. Before the class could begin, COVID intervened and the programme was deferred until conditions allowed for an in-person convening.

Since that initial announcement of the cohort was made, not all of the candidates were still able to participate in the programme. The names below represent the final cohort who begin the first workshop in the programme in South Africa next week.

Forbes Africa Magazine has profiled 2013 Fellow Danladi Veheijen and Eric Idiahi who was selected for the Tutu Fellowship Class of 2020 in their cover story of the October/ November 2020 Special Edition on Private Equity in Africa.  Danladi and Eric are co-founders of Verod Capital Management Limited. They founded the company at the apex of the global financial crisis in 2008, and it was one of the first indigenous venture capitalist firms in Nigeria.

Verod is a $300 million Africa-focused private equity firm which invests in high growth, medium sized companies across several sectors, including consumer products, manufacturing, technology/media and real estate.

It is clear that we are living in exceptional and unprecedented times. The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted our ways of working and interacting and, naturally, AFLI has also been impacted. This post provides some sense of the impact of the pandemic and its implications on the Tutu Fellowship Programme.

When the effects of the pandemic were starting to be felt in March 2020, we had just completed the process of selecting our 2020 Archbishop Tutu Leadership Associates. We carried the news of that announcement here in our News.

In March 2020, the African Leadership Institute announced the Associates who had been selected for the 2020 Class of the Tutu Fellowship programme.  As has been the case with previous cohorts, the people selected were exceptional emerging African leaders. AFLI received more than 300 nominees of outstanding quality from 36 African countries, from which the cohort was selected. Before the class could begin, COVID intervened and the programme was deferred until conditions allowed for an in-person convening.

Since that initial announcement of the cohort was made, not all of the candidates were still able to participate in the programme. The names below represent the final cohort who begin the first workshop in the programme in South Africa next week.