Fred Swaniker (born 1976) is a

Ghanaian The Ghanaian people are a nation originating in the Gold Coast (region), Ghanaian Gold Coast. Ghanaians predominantly inhabit the Republic of Ghana and are the predominant cultural group and residents of Ghana, numbering 34 million people as of ...

serial entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entrepreneu ...

and leadership development expert, focused on supporting individuals to achieve their goals. Swaniker recognized the importance of leadership and education while serving as the headmaster of a secondary school founded by his mother at the age of 17. He believed that effective leadership was a key factor needed to drive transformation in Africa. He then founded African Leadership Group, which tries to develop ethical, entrepreneurial African leaders. He has founded and led the pre-university

African Leadership Academy The African Leadership Academy (ALA) is an educational institution located in Roodepoort on the outskirts of Johannesburg, South Africa, for students between the ages of 16 and 19 years old, with current alumni coming from 46 countries. Founde ...

based in South Africa, the African Leadership University with campuses in

Mauritius Mauritius, officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island country in the Indian Ocean, about off the southeastern coast of East Africa, east of Madagascar. It includes the main island (also called Mauritius), as well as Rodrigues, Ag ...

and

Rwanda Rwanda, officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of East Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator, Rwanda is bordered by ...

ALX
an
Sand Technologies
aspiring to transform Africa by developing 3 million African leaders by 2035. In 2019, ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' magazine recognized him as one of the "100 Most Influential People in the World" and ''

Fast Company ''Fast Company'' is an American business magazine published monthly in print and online, focusing on technology, business, and design. It releases six print issues annually. History ''Fast Company'' was founded in November 1995 by Alan Webb ...

'' included African Leadership Group among the 50 most innovative companies in the world.

Early life and education

His father was a

lawyer A lawyer is a person who is qualified to offer advice about the law, draft legal documents, or represent individuals in legal matters. The exact nature of a lawyer's work varies depending on the legal jurisdiction and the legal system, as w ...

and

magistrate The term magistrate is used in a variety of systems of governments and laws to refer to a civilian officer who administers the law. In ancient Rome, a '' magistratus'' was one of the highest ranking government officers, and possessed both judi ...

, and his mother, an educator. Both are Ghanaian, but when he was 4 his family fled Ghana after the

military coup A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a d ...

and had lived in four countries in Africa by the time he was 18. He attended

Macalester College Macalester College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. Founded in 1874, Macalester is exclusively an undergraduate institution with an enrollment of 2,142 students in the fall of 2023. The college ha ...

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

and the

Stanford Graduate School of Business The Stanford Graduate School of Business is the Postgraduate education, graduate business school of Stanford University, a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California. For several years it has been the most selective ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, where he received an MBA and was named an Arjay Miller Scholar.

Career

While at

Stanford Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth governor of and th ...

, Swaniker wrote the business plan for African Leadership Academy, a pan-African school that would groom the future leaders of Africa. This was based on his belief that the single largest impediment to Africa's progress was the lack of good leadership. He leveraged his Silicon Valley connections to find financial backing and launched the Academy immediately after graduating in 2004. The full-time residential boarding school teaches leadership and entrepreneurial skills to students from across Africa while preparing them for universities around the world. By 2017, about a thousand students had joined the Academy. For most students, tuition is waived, provided they promise to return to Africa after graduating from college. In 2014 at a TED conference in Brazil, Swaniker announced an expansion of his vision: a new network of 25 African universities that would ultimately groom 3 million leaders by 2060. By the end of 2016, two campuses had opened: one in Mauritius and the other in Rwanda. Fast Company recognized this network of universities as the 3rd 'Most Innovative Company' in Africa and CNN released a feature calling the university 'the Harvard of Africa'. Graca Machel, Nelson Mandela's widow, serves as the Chancellor of the university, while Donald Kaberuka, former President of the African Development Bank, serves as the Chairman of the university's Global Advisory Council. Early in his career, Swaniker co-founde
Synexa Life Sciences
a biotech company an
Terra Education
a teen-focused immersive education and travel company. Swaniker also lead
Sand Technologies
a data and AI solutions company with engineers and data scientists distributed across Silicon Valley, France, the UK, Romania, Africa and other emerging markets.

Recognition

Swaniker's work as an educational entrepreneur has been praised by the U.S. President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

and Microsoft founder,

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American businessman and philanthropist. A pioneer of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, he co-founded the software company Microsoft in 1975 with his childhood friend ...

. He has been recognized as a

TED Fellow TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "Ideas Change Everything" (previously "Ideas Worth Sprea ...

(2009) and a

World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental organization, international advocacy non-governmental organization and think tank, based in Cologny, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German ...

Young Global Leader (2012). He was named one of the Top Ten Young Power Men in Africa by a 2011 ''Forbes'' magazine online feature
Echoing Green
recognized him as 'one of the top 15 social entrepreneurs in the world' in 2006. In 2017, Fred Swaniker received two honorary doctorates—one from Middlebury College in the USA and the second from Nelson Mandela University in South Africa. In 2018, he received a third honorary doctorate from Macalester College in the USA. In 2019 he was recognized by''

'' magazine as one of the "100 Most Influential People in the World" and in 2023, he received the Time 100 Impact Award. ''

'' also included African Leadership Group among the 50 most innovative companies in the world. Swaniker also sits on the board of th
Rhodes Trust
(awardees of the Rhodes Scholarships to Oxford University), and on the international advisory board of th
University of Waterloo

References

Fred Swaniker - Co-Founder, African Leadership Academy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Swaniker, Fred Living people 1976 births Stanford Graduate School of Business alumni Macalester College alumni Social entrepreneurs Ghanaian emigrants to South Africa McKinsey & Company people People from Johannesburg