Networks and opportunities enable entrepreneurs and leaders to transform ideas to action. African Leadership Academy actively seeks to connect its students to opportunities throughout their lives, encouraging each young leader to establish meaningful connections that will enhance their personal, leadership and career growth.
Redes e Oportunidades
Guest Speaker Series
The speaker series at African Leadership Academy provides our young leaders with opportunities to engage with dynamic and inspirational leaders who are having profound impact across different sectors and industries in Africa and the world. We believe that exposure to such leaders will create defining moments in the leadership journeys of our students and will effectively reinforce the life skills and lessons they need to transform Africa.
Phuthuma Nhleko
Guest Speaker
Andrew M. Herscowitz
Guest Speaker
Dambisa Moyo
Guest Speaker
Israel Titi Ofei
Distinguished Guest Speaker
Jocelyne Muhutu-Remy
Distinguished Guest Speaker
David Sengeh
Distinguished Guest Speaker
The Distinguished Guest Speaker Series
The Distinguished Guest Speaker Series held monthly at ALA attracts luminaries from across the African continent and the globe, whose personal stories or professional successes are aligned to ALA’s mission and core values. Among the speakers who have graced ALA are former Deputy President of South Africa Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, performing artist and entrepreneur Yvonne Chaka-Chaka, renowned South African musician, Hugh Masekela and former CEO of Hewlett Packard, Carly Fiorina.
Executive Seminars
Executive Seminars are more intimate workshops with smaller groups of interested students, covering specialized subjects. Seminars are held approximately once every two weeks. Topics of Executive Seminars in the past have included a working session on proposals to the Global Fund for HIV run by former chairperson of the Global Fund, Wilfred Griekspoor, a session on the Power of Storytelling, an all-women panel on Women in Entertainment and Media.
ALA actively connects its young leaders to global platforms such as the Aspen Institute, the World Economic Forum, the Clinton Global Initiative and TED, where our young leaders share their ideas for Africa’s transformation and foster the connections that will enable them to translate vision to action. Each year, over 100 students get to attend conferences with renowned leaders in Africa and around the world.
Internships
ALA’s internships program is critical to the development of young leaders as agents of positive change for Africa: through these opportunities, students and alumni will practice what they learn in their leadership and entrepreneurship classes, explore career options, gain exposure to industry fields and learn about the inner workings of a wide variety of organizations across the continent.
To this end, ALA has a dedicated on-campus team, the Africa Careers Network (ACN), which connects ALA students and alumni to career and internship opportunities across the African continent. Internships are typically undertaken in the students’ long break between June and September and span a wide variety of sectors including healthcare, education finance, and consulting and information technology. Organizations that ALA students have previously interned with include large multinational companies such as Google, McKinsey & Company and IBM, as well as smaller start-ups, non-profit organizations or social enterprises such as the Mandela Institute for Development Studies or Human Rights Watch.
