Africa Leadership Initiative

ALI logo The Africa Leadership Initiative (ALI) brings together Fellows from seven countries - CEOs, public servants, and other promising young leaders from Ghana, Nigeria, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya. ALI Fellows recently gathered in Aspen, CO; see slideshow.

The ALI is the result of Aspen Institute Executive Vice President Peter Reiling's Henry Crown Fellows community leadership project:

"mobilizing young [African] business leaders...to take more responsibility for the society in which they live and work."

The Africa Leadership Initiative is designed to encourage an emerging generation of African leaders to move "from success to significance" by investing their energies into the foremost challenges of their countries and times. Patrick Awuah of Ghana is one such leader. Born in Ghana, Patrick moved to the US to pursue his studies at Swarthmore College and then at the University of California's Haas School of Business. From there, he was recruited by Microsoft where he spent the next nine years. But the pull of Ghana proved irresistible. Patrick returned home in 2000 and, scraping together funds from his savings, friends and family, launched Ashesi University.

Read Building the Good Society in West Africa, December 2007.

Read South African and Indian Leaders Convene in Aspen, September 2007.

Kahlipha Class

ALI/South Africa launches New Class. A fourth class of ALI/South African Fellows commenced with The Challenge of Leadership Seminar held outside of Pretoria, South Africa at the Didimala conference center. A diverse group of twenty one Fellows from the private, non-profit and government sectors, convened for the first of four seminars aimed at building a corps of successful and entrepreneurial individuals who will be encouraged to move from "success to significance" in their endeavors by addressing the foremost challenges faced by South Africa and the continent. Read more.

View seminar participants from South Africa discuss the profound effect ALI has had in their lives in this short video produced by our co-sponsor, the Goldman Sachs Global Markets Institute. (Streaming video using RealPlayer).

Have a look at this remarkable entrepreneur and his even more remarkable vision and accomplishments. (Streaming video using RealPlayer).

Each Africa Leadership Fellow is committed to attending four seminars over a 36-month period:

The Challenge of Leadership: A seminar in which the Fellows are exposed to a range of leadership styles from Howard Schultz at Starbucks to Ricardo Semler at Semco (Brazil), Mahatma Gandhi to Jean Monnet, Martin Luther King Jr. to Nelson Mandela. Case studies include the pharmaceutical industry and HIV/AIDS in Africa, Nike and international labor practices in Asia. The Fellows produce a personal handbook of the attributes of effective, enlightened leaders and of what such leaders do and don't do. Seminar report from West Africa, May 2006.
The Great Values Seminar: Defining the Good Society: A seminar in which the Fellows build their vision of a good society by reading, discussing, debating and relating the writings of a wide range of thinkers to their present-day conditions. Thinkers include Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, Hobbes, Lee Kwan Yew, Milton Friedman, Julius Nyerere, Rachel Carson, Ibn Khaldun, Simon Bolivar and others. The Fellows share their personal thoughts on the proper role of government in society as well as on the sorts of trade-offs they are willing to accept in the name of economic growth. Seminar report from West Africa, November/December 2006.
Leading in an Era of Globalization: A seminar in which the Fellows explore the economic, political, scientific, cultural and ethical dimensions of globalization. Readings and discussions cover a wide range of topics including the demands of global capital, the future of the African Union, the challenge of eliminating corruption, the growth of Asian outsourcing and the importance of financial remittances to local economies. Seminar report from Aspen, April 2005 and photos from East Africa, June 2004.
The Promise of Leadership: A seminar in which the Fellows share the results and lessons learned from their Leadership Projects and explore issues of balancing work and family, community engagement and personal legacy. Seminar report from Ghana, March 2005; Seminar report from Tanzania, June 2005.

For evidence of the impact of the Great Values Seminar on one Fellow, read Dele Olojede's speech to the Nigerian business fraternity on October 8, 2005. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 2005 for his extended examination of post-genocide Rwanda, Dele Olojede is now Executive Chairman, Timbuktu Media Plc.

The Global Markets Institute at Goldman Sachs is generously supporting the second class of 20 ALI Fellows from South Africa. This support includes sponsoring four leadership development seminars for the Fellows over the coming two years as well as a special "ALI Comes to Aspen" event in April 2005.

BarloWorld Inc, is supporting the launch of a third ALI South Africa Class, which held its first seminar The Challenge of Leadership at the BarloWorld Farm near Pilgrim’s Rest, South Africa, September 2006.

The ALI is a partnership between the Aspen Institute, the economic development organization TechnoServe, Databank Foundation (Ghana), Leap Africa (Nigeria) Infotech Investments (Tanzania), CETA Construction and Services (Mozambique) and Letsema Foundation (South Africa).

For more information contact Abigail Golden-Vazquez at agoldenvazquez@aspeninst.org or 202-736-2537.