Professional History: Lerato Mataboge is the African Union's Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy. She was appointed to this role by the AU Assembly in February 2025. Commissioners have a four-year term. She brings two decades of experience in trade, investment facilitation, and policy development to the position. In her manifesto for the position, she said her aim was to foster an integrated, self-sufficient Africa that fully harnesses its resources, industries, and capabilities for the benefit of its people.

Previously, she was the Deputy Director-General for Export Promotion, Development and Outward Investments (EPD&OI) in the South African government's Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (the DTIC). In this role, she provided strategic support and advice to the departmental leadership and the presidency on engaging global stakeholders for economic growth.

Prior to this, Lerato founded and headed Trade Invest Africa, an initiative of the DTI aimed at creating sustainable partnerships with the private sector to obtain greater levels of intra-African trade and intra-African investments. In this role, she facilitated infrastructure and industrial projects into the rest of Africa as part of marketing South Africa through Trade Invest Africa.

She previously held the position of Chief Director for Africa at the DTI with the responsibility of strengthening South Africa’s bilateral relationships with countries on the African continent. In June 2011, she completed her four-year term as a diplomat when she was South Africa’s Chief Trade and Investment Representative to the USA in Washington D.C.

Lerato says she is a passionate advocate for Africa’s economic growth and development. She was featured in the Destiny Magazine’s Power 40 under 40 in November 2015 in recognition of her leadership on African economic issues. She was co-chairperson of the South African Presidential Working Group on the North-South Corridor (2011-2015). She serves on the Board of the Export Credit Insurance Corporation of South Africa (ECIC). She is a Chevening Scholar.

Academic and professional credentials: BA Law and International Relations from the University of the Witwatersrand
BA (Honours) in International Relations from the University of the Witwatersrand
Masters degree in International Political Economy (International Trade and Global Finance) from the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom
Various Certificates in trade negotiations, bilateral investment treaty negotiations, etc., from the European Institute of Public Administration in the Netherlands and WTO/UNCTAD
Executive training with thesis from Harvard Kennedy School of Government

Programs: