Advisory Board

The Academy has established an Advisory Board with nine active members. This Advisory Board is comprised of respected African business and a number of respected educators with experience launching and managing top secondary schools throughout the world.

The Founding Team

A Ghanaian with a pan-African Background, Fred Swaniker is the Chief Executive Officer and driving force behind African Leadership Academy. For nine years, Fred has helped manage one of the top-performing private elementary schools in Botswana, Mount Pleasant English Medium School. More recently, Fred led the launch of The Summer Academy at Cape Town, which hosted 71 students from 13 countries at its inaugural summer program in June 2005. Previously, Fred helped launch Synexa Life Sciences, a profitable biotechnology company in Cape Town, and worked as a consultant for McKinsey and Company, where he provided strategic advice to large companies in Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, and South Africa.

Fred has an MBA degree from Stanford University, where he was named an Arjay Miller Scholar, a distinction awarded to the top ten percent of each graduating class. Fred also holds a BA degree magna cum laude in economics from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA.

As a Partner of McKinsey & Company, Acha Leke has served a broad range of clients across Africa in fields including telecom, health care, oil & gas, and banking. A native of Cameroon, Acha started his career with McKinsey in the USA. In 2002, he transferred to the Johannesburg office to drive the firm’s expansion across Sub Saharan Africa. This work has taken Acha to South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Botswana. In 2005, Acha became the first black Partner elected by McKinsey’s Johannesburg office.

Acha has a PhD in Electrical Engineering, an MS in Electrical Engineering, and an MS in Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management from Stanford University. He also holds a BS degree summa cum laude, with a minor in Economics, from the Georgia Institute of Technology. At Georgia Tech, Acha graduated as the first black Valedictorian in the university’s history.

A German native, Peter Mombaur has spent the past four years based in Nigeria as an independent consultant to the nation’s third largest bank, United Bank of Africa. Previously, Peter served as the West African CEO of Emperion, a telecommunications company providing Satellite and VSAT connectivity to some of the largest corporations in Nigeria. Peter was also an Engagement Manager for McKinsey and Company, where he was based out of the Johannesburg office and did project work in Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, Tanzania, and Nigeria.

Peter holds a Master’s degree with honors in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Aachen, an honors degree in Law from the University of Hagen, and a degree in Economics from the University of Bayreuth.

A citizen of the United States, Chris Bradford has worked as a Consultant with the Boston Consulting Group and in brand management at the Procter and Gamble Company. Chris also spent two years a Peter Ling Teaching Fellow at Oundle School, one of the largest coeducational boarding schools in the United Kingdom. At Oundle School, Chris taught GCSE science and A-level economics courses and counseled students interested in attending universities in the USA. Today, his former students are undergraduates at universities including Oxford, Cambridge, Stanford, Dartmouth, and the London School of Economics.

Chris has a BA degree summa cum laude from Yale University, an MA in Education Administration from Stanford University, and an MBA from Stanford University. At Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, Chris was named one of five Siebel Scholars in recognition of his academic excellence and extracurricular leadership.