Enterprise

Unique financier invests in better leaders for Africa

fred

Fred Swaniker, entrepreneur and founder of Africa Leadership Academy. PHOTO | COURTESY

Fred Swaniker, a Ghanaian entrepreneur, leadership development expert and Stanford Graduate School of Business alumnus has embarked on the noble venture of addressing one of Africa’s most daunting problems: a deficit of effective, ethical, visionary and accountable leaders.

Mr Swaniker aims to create three million high-impact leaders and entrepreneurs across Africa in the next 50 years through the Africa Leadership Academy (ALA) — his brainchild.

While delivering a public lecture at the University of Nairobi’s Taifa Hall last Thursday, Mr Swaniker presented his vision of tackling Africa’s leadership challenges by producing an average 600 graduates annually from the academy.

Each graduate will in turn groom and generate a minimum of 100 innovative and problem solving leaders to help combat challenges affecting the continent. “Africa’s greatest resources are not diamonds, gold, oil, and precious metals underneath it, the continent’s greatest resource which remains untapped is education and effective leadership to utilise these resources and to create solid wealth for generations to come,” he said.

Mr Swaniker, 42, bemoaned how successive African leaders — who were bestowed with trust and responsibility by their people to manage resources — have instead plundered and mismanaged them and further suppressed education and development, saying that it’s time to create a new crop of leaders by empowering high potential youth and graduates to launch careers of impact and purpose or incubate their own ventures.

The answer is at the learning institution he created. “ALA is currently grooming 20 first century leaders, equipping them with skills and entrepreneurial experience to tackle real world challenges and build a strong work portfolio to share with future employers and eventually launch own business empires and leadership roles,” he said.

“ALA community is a network of innovative problem solvers and entrepreneurial leaders who engage in workshops and projects to maximize their impact, to develop critical thinking, quantitative reasoning, and entrepreneurial acumen through active and authentic practice.”

Noting that Africa’s population will grow to over one billion in 50 years, Mr Swaniker said it will pose a challenge to provide food, housing, healthcare and infrastructure, but also present opportunities which if tapped by effective leadership will transform Africa’s potential disaster into a success story.

“By giving people a chance to get this education, then we can actually get people out of poverty and into the middle class, and then eventually creating wealth for others.” When Mr Swaniker’s lawyer father passed away, his mother decided to open up a school in Botswana in a small church room with five students, making her son headmaster at only 18, a situation that inspired his leadership development.

Mr Swaniker founded ALA in 2004. It is a residential school for 16 to 19 year olds based in Johannesburg, South Africa, with branches in Rwanda and the Seychelles. About 80 per cent of ALA graduates attend top universities in the US including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and Princeton and internships in ivy companies.

For most students, tuition is waived, provided they promise to return to Africa after graduating from college.

“ALA is not just a two year qualification — it is a lifelong programme. We are finding young leaders from all over Africa, people that have demonstrated some attributes of leadership, and we are bringing them into this institution for an initial two-year period.

“We aim to build a network around our young leaders to support and enable them to be effective and successful as they continue on their personal leadership journeys. It is this constant networking and interaction that will give these future leaders the resources they need to create positive change.”

Up to 177 ventures have been founded by ALA alumni in 35 countries across the world, creating 499 quality jobs.

Additionally, ALA alumni attend 148 leading universities across the world and have collectively received over $107 million (Sh10.7 billion) in university scholarship aid.

ALA’s Anzisha Prize, an award for young African entrepreneurs, has awarded 67 people from 24 countries over $495,000 (Sh49.5 million) in cash prizes to invest in their ventures.

Also, 1,294 students have secured internships through ALA’s careers and internships programme, Africa Careers Network (ACN). Eighty three per cent of internships and job placements are across 38 African countries.