Lindiwe Mazibuko

Co-Founder & CEO, Futurelect

Lindiwe Mazibuko is a South African public leader, writer, and academic fellow. She was the first black woman in South African history to be elected Leader of the Opposition in Parliament. Lindiwe is the co-founder and CEO of Futurelect, a non-partisan organization supporting a new generation of political and public sector leaders in Africa.

A graduate of the University of Cape Town in South Africa and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in the United States, Lindiwe was an elected representative in South Africa’s National Assembly until May 2014, when she resigned from active politics in order to return to higher education.

She has served as a fellow of the Institute of Politics (IOP) at Harvard University and of the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS) in South Africa. She is currently a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, a Fisher Family Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs, as well as a trustee of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund and of the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa. Lindiwe also writes a weekly column in South Africa’s leading national newspaper, The Sunday Times.

Futurelect’s mission is to make the public service work better for more people throughout the African continent by supporting a new generation of 21st-century ethical and transformational civic, political, and government leaders.
Futurelect is a non-partisan organization supporting women and young people to pursue political and government leadership in Africa. Futurelect designs and delivers non-partisan, intensive, and interdisciplinary leadership development and training programs to diverse groups of ethical and innovative leaders – particularly young people and women – to prepare them for leadership in public service. Each annual cohort of Futurelect’s Public Service Fellows has 25 to 30 high-impact leaders of diverse backgrounds from the private, public, and non-profit sectors.