About Us > Governors & Advisors

Board of Governors

Futhi Mtoba, Partner and Chairwoman, Deloitte & Touche South Africa
Futhi is currently Chairwoman of the Board of Deloitte & Touche South Africa. Futhi joined Deloitte South Africa in 1988 and later became the first black woman to be appointed to the Board. She is an active participant on a number of government and quasi-government bodies. Futhi served as Director and Chair of the Investment Committee of the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) with assets under management of R400 billion ($60 billion USD). She was honored as "2004 Business Woman of the Year" by the Businesswomen’s Association and Nedbank.

Osaze Osifo, CEO, Travant Capital
Osaze Osifo is a co-founder and the Chief Executive Officer of Travant Capital Partners, an alternative investments firm focused on the West and Central African markets. Mr. Osifo is the former Chief Executive Officer of Ocean and Oil Holdings, based in Lagos. Mr. Osifo has served and currently serves on the Board of Directors of a number of companies in the energy, real estate and finance sectors. He is also member of the Africa Regional Advisory Board of the London Business School

Nomsa Daniels, Partner, SRM Holdings
Nomsa is a partner in SRM Holdings, a black economic empowerment investment firm focusing on technology ventures in South Africa. Nomsa was previously involved in the anti-Apartheid struggle while she lived in exile in the United States.

Eric Wright, Partner, Africa Venture Partners
Eric has extensive experience in venture capital, private equity, M&A, corporate finance, capital markets and leveraged buyouts in Africa and the USA. He was previously the head of private equity and venture capital for Citigroup in South Africa. Eric has been involved in cross-boarder corporate finance and capital markets transactions totaling approximately $1 billion USD for African issuers. 

Nonkqubela Mazwai, Deputy Managing Director, Coal of Africa Limited
Nonkqubela Mazwai has served of the Board of Directors of Lafarge Mining and Industries, Central Energy Fund (Pty) Ltd, Strategic Fuel Fund, South African Mining Development Association (SAMDA), and CIDA Empowerment Trust. She has provided advisory services to companies including Anglo American and De Beers and has worked with the South African government to implement mining legislation. Nonkqubela also previously served as Chief Executive Officer of Motjoli Resources (Pty) Ltd.

Fred Swaniker, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, African Leadership Academy
Fred has a proven track record as an entrepreneur and brings the experience of launching and managing private educational institutions of excellence, including Mount Pleasant English Medium School in Botswana and Global Leadership Adventures. Fred previously worked as a consultant for McKinsey and Company and as the founding Chief Operating Officer of Synexa Life Sciences, a biotechnology company in Cape Town.

Peter Mombaur, Founder, Mombaur McCabe Consulting
Peter is a Co-Founder of ALA. He is a German citizen who has spent much of his professional life in Africa. Peter currently serves as a consultant to Africa Holdings, the investment company managing the Oppenheimer family’s investments in Africa. He spent much of the last five years in Nigeria, where he has served as a consultant to United Bank of Africa and previously as the West African CEO of Emperion, a telecommunications company serving some of Nigeria’s largest companies.

Acha Leke, Partner, McKinsey and Company
Acha, a native of Cameroon, is a Partner of McKinsey & Company and a Co-Founder of ALA. He is based out of McKinsey’s Johannesburg office, where he has served a broad range of clients across Africa. This work has taken Acha to South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Botswana, among others. Acha has a PhD in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

Board of Advisors

The Academy’s Board of Advisors is comprised of African and global luminaries in business, leadership development, secondary education, and social entrepreneurship. The Advisory Board provides strategic input and guidance to the ALA management team.

Carly Fiorina, Former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Hewlett-Packard
Mrs. Fiorina was Chief Executive Officer of Hewlett-Packard Company (HP) from 1999 to 2005. Before joining Hewlett-Packard as CEO, Carly spent 22 years in leadership positions at AT&T and Lucent Technologies. She sits on the boards of Taiwan Semiconductor and Revolution Health, serves as a trustee for MIT, and is a board member of numerous non-profit organizations, including Freedom House, Initiative for Global Development, and the National Symphony Orchestra.

Dr. Khalid Al-Mansour, Senior Advisor, HRH Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal
Dr. Al-Mansour is an international attorney and businessman and is renowned as an intellectual, activist, author, and teacher. He co-founded the law firm of Al-Waleed, Al-Talal, and Al-Mansour and has served as a director of the Saudi African Bank and the United Bank of Africa among others.

Dr. Myma Belo-Osagie, Partner, Udo Udoma and Belo-Osagie, Nigeria
Myma is a founding partner of one of Nigeria’s leading law firms and is a member of the Nigerian, Ghanaian, American, and International Bar Associations. She is a graduate of the University of Ghana, Harvard Law School, and the Nigerian Law School.

Sir Sam Jonah, President (Retired), Anglogold Ashanti PLC, South Africa
Sir Sam is the non-executive President of Anglogold Ashanti, where he transformed Ashanti Goldfields from a one-mine operation into the world’s second-largest gold producer. He is the Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast, Ghana and a Visiting Professor of Business at the University of Witswatersrand in Johannesburg.

Temba Maqubela, Dean of Faculty, Phillips Academy Andover, USA
Temba is Dean of Faculty at Andover, one of the most prestigious secondary schools in the USA. He joined the Andover faculty in 1987 as a refugee of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa and later became Chairman of Andover’s Chemistry Department and Director of (MS)2, Andover’s summer math and science program for minority students.

Margaret Nkrumah, Principal, SOS-HGIC International School, Ghana
Margaret is Principal of SOS Hermann Gmeiner International College, which takes talented orphaned and abandoned children from across the African continent. SOS-HGIC is acknowledged as the most successful school in Ghana and places its graduates in leading global universities. Margaret also serves on the Boards of the International Baccalaureate Organization and the International Schools Association.

Foluso Phillips, Founder and CEO, Phillips Consulting, Nigeria
Foluso is an Industrial Economist and Chartered Accountant and is Executive Chairman of the Phillips Consulting Group, a business and management consulting firm with offices in Lagos, Johannesburg, London, and Kenya. He is the Publisher of the West Africa edition of Business in Africa magazine is a director or trustee for a number of leading companies, charities, and NGOs.

Isaac Shongwe, Executive Director, Barloworld Ltd, South Africa
Isaac was recently elected as the first black Executive Director of Barloworld, one of the largest listed companies in South Africa. A Rhodes Scholar and Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute, Isaac is also a founding member of the African Leadership Initiative and is its Chairman in South Africa.

Dr. Ralph Townsend, Headmaster, Winchester College, UK
Ralph is the head of Winchester College, one of the premiere independent schools in England. He was previously headmaster of Oundle School, the largest coeducational boarding school in the UK, and Sydney Grammar School in Australia. He has also served in the Theology Faculty at Oxford and as Head of English at Eton College.