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The African Leadership Institute is pleased to announce the Associates who have been selected for the 2022 Class of the Tutu Fellowship programme. As has been the case with previous cohorts, the people selected are exceptional emerging African leaders. AFLI received more than 330 nominations of outstanding quality from across Africa, from which the cohort was selected. They are from the following countries: Cameroon, Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mauritania, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe. 

A few candidates are included this year who were selected in 2020 but who could not attend that cohort due to COVID restrictions. The selected candidates demonstrate the incredible wealth and breadth of leadership talent that exists in Africa’s young people, which bodes well for Africa’s future.

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.

2006 Fellow Judy Malan at AFLI 10th Anniverary celebration at Nirox Park. Also in picture, 2015 Fellow Martin Mbaya.

The African Leadership Institute is delighted to announce the appointment of Judy Malan as Programme Director for the Archbishop Tutu Leadership Fellowship Programme with effect from 1st March 2021.

Judy is well known to the Tutu Fellows community, having been a Fellow of the inaugural Tutu Programme in 2006 along with our past Chairman, Ronnie Ntuli and past Board Member, Aidan Eyakuze. It is truly heart-warming that members of that very first cadre of Tutu Fellows are still engaged and committed to continue our mission to build a network of high-potential values-based leaders across the continent who are committed to making Africa a better place for all to live in.

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.

2019 Tutu Fellow Akintunde Ayebode has been tweeting about how he experienced the Tutu Leadership programme this past year.  In the past, Fellows have described it as being a deeply personal journey but haven't necessarily been public on social media.   Akin is a Special Adviser for Ekiti State Government, in Nigeria, where he is responsible for leading the state government’s efforts to make Ekiti an attractive destination for investors and innovation driven enterprises.

The cover photo is a tweet of his in which he says: Asked to submit an iconic photo representing our respective countries for a @TutuFellows class. There are many reasons I chose Ken Geiger & William Snyder’s Pulitzer winning photo. What does it mean to you?  The article below is a compilation of some of Akin's tweets about the Tutu Fellowship programme.

The following essay is by Ronak Gopaldas, a 2019 Tutu Fellow. The Tutu Fellowship Programme requires each participant to write an essay on leadership in Africa. The quality of submissions is very high as demonstrated by this piece by Ronak. He points out that by the year 2050, Africa will have the largest population and workforce in the world and will be too big to ignore. 

But its demographic bulge could either be a huge boon, or disastrous. Despite its size and scale, Africa is constantly referred to as having “vast potential,” whilst being excluded in global affairs.  With the right leadership in place, there is an opportunity to reshape this state of affairs.  His essay follows.

To Peter, Sean, Jacob, Jackie, Jessica, Charles, Lord Hacking, Ronnie, Karen, Allen, and the rest of the faculty:

You called upon us to embark on a journey into the realm of human possibilities. In this short yet intense adventure, we stopped at many stations. We traversed the rich and complex jungles of leadership, negotiating between the charismatic and the inspirational, and wondered whether something “straight” would come out of the “crooked timber of humanity”. We encountered, with thoughts raised high, the wicked problems of how to effect change at the continent, pondered over “Africa’s critical choices”, and explored opportunities to use trade to bring prosperity to our continent.

The first workshop of the 2019 Archbishop Tutu Leadership Programme was held at the Mont Fleur Conference Centre from the 27th April to the 4th of May, 2019. The 23 Fellowship candidates came from some 250 nominees of outstanding excellence from over 30 African countries, and represented 11 different African countries - Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Gabon, Mali, South Africa, the Gambia, Tanzania, Ghana and Madagascar.

It was a memorable time of learning, introspection, forging deep relationships with peers and lots of laughter!

The African Leadership Institute has a very strong cohort of emerging African leaders for the prestigious Tutu Leadership Fellowship for 2019. Amongst nearly 250 nominees of outstanding quality from more than 30 African countries, 23 of Africa’s highest potential young leaders were selected to take part in the programme. Including the candidates nominated by our sponsoring organisations, the candidates represent 12 different African countries, ranging in age 25 to 39 years of age, and span several industries. The selected candidates demonstrate the incredible wealth and breadth of leadership talent that exists in Africa’s youth.

The biographies of the 2019 candidates follow:

Archbishop Tutu Fellowship Certificates were awarded to the 2018 Tutu Fellows at an exuberant celebratory event kindly hosted by Lord Hacking at his home in London at the end of an intensive but very rewarding 10-day workshop at Oxford University and in London. Old favourites continued to be amongst the highlights of the week – conducting choristers in Exeter College chapel, Eddie Obeng’s aliens, good kings/queens, warriors and medicine women in Mythodrama’s Henry V, cooking lunch with Caryn and Ros, dining in the House of Lords after a personal conducted tour of the Houses of Parliament, and Andrew Feinstein’s amazing stories of corruption in the global arms trade.

The African Leadership Institute, once again, has a very strong cohort of emerging African leaders for the prestigious Tutu Leadership Fellowship for 2018.  Amongst nearly 300 nominees of outstanding quality from over 30 African countries, 18 of Africa’s highest potential young leaders were selected to take part in the programme. Including the candidates nominated by our sponsoring organisations, the candidates represent ten different African countries and various industries, and range from 30 to 39 years of age. The selected candidates demonstrate the incredible wealth and breadth of leadership talent that exists in Africa’s youth.  The biographies of the 2018 candidates follow:

When nominations closed earlier this week, there were close to 300 really top quality nominations of emerging African leaders from across the continent for the 2018 Tutu Leadership Fellowship.  We were again impressed by the breadth of outstanding candidates who are applying for the Fellowship, reinforcing what we already know: that there is no shortage of excellent young leaders on the continent. 

A final celebratory dinner hosted by Investec in their London offices on 15th September brought to an end a six-month tumultuous journey of learning, of exploration, of self-reflection and establishing bonds of friendship and collaboration amongst 28 of Africa’s highest-potential emerging leaders, that will pertain across thousands of kilometres and for many many years. The Tutu Fellowship awards were presented at the dinner to those who had met the exacting standards required by the Fellowship and the 2017 class of newly-awarded Tutu Fellows dispersed to fulfil their potential and commitment as young leaders to make Africa a better place for all to live in.

The Tutu Leadership Programme has two workshops, one in South Africa, and the second in the UK.  Between the speaker sessions, group projects, soul searching and other required work is time for bonding, networking, and fun.  The gallery below gives a sense of the camaraderie among the Class of 2017.

The African Leadership Institute has a strong cohort of candidates for the prestigious Tutu Leadership Fellowship.  Amongst nearly 300 nominees from over 30 African countries, 26 of Africa’s highest potential young leaders were selected to take part in the programme. Spanning various industries, representing eleven African countries and ranging from 29 to 39 years of age, the selected candidates demonstrate the wealth and breadth of leadership talent that exists in Africa’s youth.  The biographies of the 2017 candidates follows: