Magogodi Makhene

Position(s):

Selection Committee & Volunteer

Magogodi Makhene is Co-Founding Managing Director of Zenzele Circle.  Zenzele helps build Africa's Missing Middle by linking start-up small medium enterprises (SMEs) in sub-Saharan Africa with seed and growth capital as well as strategic sectoral relationships. She is also Founding Co-Chair of the Africa Social Enterprise Forum, an annual gathering of social investment capital and innovative African social enterprise ventures. Magogodi is a Catherine B. Reynolds Fellow for Social Entrepreneurship at NYU, where her masters work has focused on leveraging private equity/venture capital finance tools to advance African development.  She is also a keen essayist, with several writing awards, including first prize for the 2007 Elie Wiesel Prize in Ethics Essay Contest.  She is author of the blog Africa's Moment for Skoll Foundation's Social Edge.  Magogodi is proudly South African, a Sowetan girl at heart whose earliest memories growing up at the tail-end of apartheid South Africa profoundly shaped her belief in humanity.