Gugu Msibi is a Senior Partner at Ernst & Young. She is the Public Sector and Government Leader in Africa and a priority account leader. She was appointed to the leadership team of the African firm and contributes to leadership of the firm across the globe. In a short time, she has made a meaningful contribution to the firm in a number of different ways. Msibi has demonstrated her leadership strengths among her colleagues by engaging them strategically in significant areas of the business related to both its market and people strategies. As such, she has earned their respect and is often sought for her advice and guidance. Msibi is one of South Africa's pioneering women working across business and government with a focus on global financial services. She has also been adviser to many senior government leaders at a ministerial level. As a Fellow of the Aspen Institute's African Leadership Initiative, Msibi has been identified as a leader within Africa who is a role model as well as pioneer across disciplines.

Mandla Sibeko set up his own investment business, Seed Capital Investments, through which he has various interests in the small business sector. Through this company, he has partaken in a number of related media, retail, property and e-procurement acquisitions, including becoming the owner of the Pick n Pay Family Supermarket in Kliptown, Soweto. He also holds a 40% stake in Icon SA, a partnership with a UK-based global stadium and City dressing company that branded the 2006 German FIFA World Cup. Mandla Sibeko ventured into the media industry by creating his own production company. In addition, Mr. Sibeko is a founding member of several investment initiatives focusing on the empowerment of young people, with key investments in food, retail, media and clothing industries. He also serves as a Non-Executive Director of Paarl Print and Paarl Print, Paarl Labs – the largest magazine and commercial printer in South Africa and part of Media 24 Group, Mandla serves as Director of the FNB Joburg Art Fair, the largest Art Fair in Africa.

Judy Sikuza, CEO of The Mandela Rhodes Foundation, is a fervent advocate of education and leadership as catalysts for positive change. With a background in organizational development, she navigates challenges in both the private and development sectors. Honoured as a Mail & Guardian Top 200 Young South African and an Archbishop Desmond Tutu Leadership Fellow, Sikuza’s leadership is acclaimed. Internationally sought-after for her expertise, she addresses prestigious events and contributes thought leadership on resilience, transformation and nation-building. With degrees from Nelson Mandela University and Columbia University, she blends academic excellence with practical experience, embodying a holistic approach to her impactful work.

2006-13: Vice President, IMANI; 2013 - Present: Honorary Vice President, IMANI; 2009: Consultant, World Bank Africa Plan; 2012: Consultant, UNECA; 2009: United Nations Secretary-General's Innovation Working Group Taskforce on Maternal Health; Member, APHRC Board; Member, RED Media Board; 2018: George Mallinkrodt & Adrian Cheng Fellow, Harvard University; 2003: Fellow, UKPPARC; 2006: Fellow, Berlin Institute of Comparative Social Research; 2009: Fellow, TED; Fellow, Archbishop Tutu; 2009: Recipient, Tech Museum Laureate; 2016: Fortune Global 50 (World's Greatest Leaders); Aspen AGLN ALIWA & Braddock Fellow; 2019 Skoll Awardee; 2017 Tallberg Eliasson Global Leadership Prize Laureate.

With over 13 years dedicated to various roles within the African Leadership Group (ALG), Veda Sunassee has been instrumental in shaping the group since joining the African Leadership Academy in 2010. A true educator at heart, he played a key role in developing the leadership model integral to ALG’s mission of cultivating 3 million African leaders by 2035. Sunassee’s impactful journey includes being part of the founding team of the African Leadership College (ALC) in Mauritius in 2015 and later serving as the Founding Dean of the African Leadership University (ALU) in Rwanda from 2017 to 2019. Currently, as CEO of ALC and ALU, he oversees operations on both the Mauritius and Rwanda campuses, steering the institution's ambitious five-year strategy to evolve into a "distributed university" globally. Beyond his executive role, Sunassee is recognized internationally as an accomplished moderator. In 2020, he co-founded a boutique leadership consulting firm, NiaDelta. Sunassee is a Princeton University graduate, and was selected among the inaugural Obama Leaders in 2018.

Matthew Tilleard is co-founder and co-Managing Partner of The CrossBoundary Group, an innovative investment firm that unlocks private capital for sustainable development. It employs over 70 investment professionals across offices in Nairobi, Johannesburg, Lagos, Bamako, Washington DC, Dubai, London and New York City. CrossBoundary Advisory provides investment and economic advisory services across a range of developing countries and has also developed innovative mechanisms to attract investment in fragile states affected by conflict. CrossBoundary Energy is the first dedicated investment fund for commercial and industrial solar in Africa. It is now one of the largest distributed solar utilities in Africa with over 15MW of projects under construction or operation in Kenya, Rwanda and Ghana. In 2018, CrossBoundary announced the formation of CrossBoundary Energy Access. A blended finance facility backed by the Rockefeller Foundation and private investors to use project finance to distributed solar-storage mini-grids for rural electrification of over 170,000 people.
Matthew began his career at The Boston Consulting Group where he focused on projects at the intersection of the private and public sector. While at BCG he co-founded ripple.org, a nonprofit website that has reached over 1.25 million people. In 2008 Matthew left BCG to become a policy advisor to Noel Pearson, a respected indigenous leader in Australia. In 2009, he moved to Kabul, Afghanistan to help establish the Afghan Investment Climate Facility (Harakat) - an innovative Afghan led $50M USD facility with a mandate to remove barriers to private sector development in Afghanistan. Matthew holds a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Melbourne, a Masters of Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and and MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business where he attended as a Fulbright Scholar. In 2015, he was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.

Alice Usanase is a highly accomplished executive with over a decade of expertise in developing and identifying business opportunities in frontier/emerging markets. With a strong focus on mobilizing resources for organizational sustainability, she has successfully led diverse teams at the World Bank Group and Africa Finance Corporation (AFC). Usanase specializes in creating tailored solutions for sovereigns, institutional investors and development finance institutions (DFIs), utilizing her extensive local market knowledge to design impactful strategies and policies for sustainable development. Additionally, she co-authored the publication, Infrastructure Financing in Sub-Saharan Africa – Best Practices From Ten Years in the Field, in collaboration with BCG and AFC. Usanase's commitment to social impact is further demonstrated through her co-founding of We*Care, a social community dedicated to creating educational opportunities for vulnerable children in Rwanda, facilitating their return to school and reuniting them with their families. She was also recently selected as part of the WEF 2024 Young Global Leader cohort.

Principal of Counterspace, an award-winning architecture and research studio, based between Johannesburg and London, Sumayya Vally’s design, research and pedagogical practice is searching for expression for hybrid identities and territory, particularly for African and Islamic conditions. Her design process is often forensic, and draws on the aural, performance, the supernatural, and the overlooked as generative places of history and work.

A TIME100 Next List honouree, named as a figure who will shape the future of architectural canon and practice; and designer of the 20th Serpentine Pavilion (2020/2021), Vally is the youngest architect ever to be commissioned for the internationally renowned architecture programme, which opened to unprecedented critical acclaim in 2021. She has recently worked on initiating and developing Support Structures for Support Structures, a new fellowship programme launched at the Serpentine, which supports artists and collectives who support community through their work at the intersections of art and social justice, art and the archive and art and ecology. Sumayya has also recently been named a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, and serves on several boards through her interest in dynamic forms of archive and supporting new networks of knowledge in the arts. She is presently immersed in several projects which work to create cultural typologies and platforms for the future, through the lenses of identity and embodied heritage - including work on the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Library in Liberia and through her role as creative director and contemporary commissions curator for the first-ever Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah.

Professor Zeblon Zenzele Vilakazi FRS was appointed Vice-Chancellor and Principal of Wits University in January 2021. Previously holding the position of Vice-Principal and deputy vice chancellor for research at the university of witwatersrand. 2007-2013: Director of iThemba LABS, the largest nuclear physics research lab in the southern hemisphere. Research interests include nuclear and computational physics.
Taught at University of Cape Town where he was involved in a large scientific project conducted at the ALICE experiment of CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC). From 2009 to 2011, served as Chairman of the IAEA Standing Advisory Committee on Nuclear Applications. In July 2022 was elected as Fellow of the Royal Society of London.

Dominic Wadongo is the Group Head of Operational Risk at Equity Group Holdings, overseeing operational risk management across Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. He is also in charge of driving the operational risk management in non-banking subsidiaries, which include Equity Investment Bank, Equity Insurance, Equity Group Foundation and Finserve. The scope encompasses driving the integrated operational risk management framework covering operational risk, IT and cyber risk, business continuity management, fraud risk, data privacy and protection, and security. Previously, Wadongo was Acting Chief Risk Officer and Head of Enterprise Risk at the National Bank of Kenya, where he ensured an effective risk management framework covering key risk areas in the company. Before joining National Bank of Kenya, Dominic started his career at Standard Chartered Bank of Kenya (SCBK) in 2007 where he worked for six years. He was the Senior Operational Risk Officer, in Global Shared Services Centre Africa. He graduated from the University of Nairobi with an MBA in 2015. He also has a BSc in Wildlife Management from Moi University. Wadongo is currently pursuing professional certifications in operational risk management (PRMIA) and Certified Risk and Information Systems Control (CRISC). He is also a member of the Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP).

James Heads up Alpha Strategy Consulting, an African boutique strategy advisory house; advising large corporates on their expansion in Africa. He previously headed up GEMS Education Solutions work in Africa. Previuosly, he was the Managing Director of the Branson School of Entrepreneurship, established in 2006 by Sir Richard Branson, to spearhead the advancement of young marginalized entrepreneurs. A successful visionary entrepreneur, Wanjohi was educated in India (Aurangabad and Vadodara) in commerce, economics and strategy. Today James partners with corporates to build youth entrepreneurship programs linked to innovation responding to the youth bulge challenge in Africa. He serves on the Boards of Ndiza Micro Finance and UDDI, and is a Strategic Director for Africa Kapital Konnect.

Founder and CEO of Sunray Ventures, which focuses as an Africa/Middle East Venture Builder on high-impact companies. Sunray currently scales up companies in renewable energy (Daystar Power), green logistics (Bisedge) and industrial services (Nordic Degrees). Promoter of sustainable economic growth in Africa through cleantech/circular economy initiatives. Endeavor Entrepreneur. Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum (class 2012).
MSc in Business Administration, University of Cologne. 20 years consulting and industry experience with a focus on Africa.