From Insight to Impact: How The AFC Fellows Are Leading Change

For Fellows of The AFC Fellowship, leadership shows up in many forms: challenging systems, reframing how climate action is defined, mobilising others around a shared purpose, and finding the confidence to act from wherever you stand.

Through conversations with three alumni from different cohorts, one thing is clear: the Fellowship didn’t just add to their knowledge. It changed how they see themselves, their work, and their ability to create impact.

Leadership without permission

For Beth Njeri, a communications professional originally from Kenya and now leading Global Communications for LIPTON teas, one of the most powerful shifts was redefining what leadership actually means.

Like many participants, Beth joined the programme with a sense that leadership was something reserved for those with authority or formal power. The Fellowship challenged that assumption head-on. Leadership, she reflects, is about empathy, listening, passion, and purpose — not titles. That reframing proved transformative.

“Nothing limits me from making a contribution. I don’t need to wait for a title to do meaningful work.”

During the programme, Beth found herself drawing on her strengths in communication to advocate for human rights, mobilising others and influencing policy conversations without waiting for permission or seniority. Today, she uses her platform and professional role to bring nuance and clarity to sustainability debates, helping organizations and audiences understand the real human impact behind supply chains, climate targets, and corporate commitments.

“Understanding what leadership beyond authority really means, gave me the confidence to act. During the programme, I stepped into advocacy and started contributing in a more intentional way.”

The Fellowship didn’t change Beth’s career direction so much as align it more clearly with her purpose — giving her the confidence to use her voice more intentionally and visibly.

“I would say it really accelerated my career. It gave me perspective, especially early on, when hearing from experienced voices.

During the sessions, we heard from people who had led meaningful initiatives and made a tangible impact. What stood out was how they defined that impact, often through qualities that aren’t always highlighted in traditional views of leadership.

Leadership is often associated with authority, but less often with listening, humility and empathy. That really stayed with me. It expanded how I think about leadership and, in a way, held up a mirror, showing that many of these qualities already exist within us. You don’t have to wait for permission to use them. You can choose to step forward and act.

So, that to me really expanded my perspective on how I think about leadership and to an extent also provided a mirror that all these things are already within us. You just need to not wait to be activated and just activate yourself and move!”

For Beth the programme also changed her perspective on the relationship between the global North and South:

“I gained a simple but important perspective: no one has fully figured this out, so I don’t need to wait for a sacred direction on the path to climate solutions. Every contribution matters.”

Bridging worlds, not reinforcing divides

For Lye Ogunsanya, a member of the Nigerian Diaspora now working in Ireland, the Fellowship sharpened something more subtle but equally powerful: the ability to work across systems, cultures, and global divides.

“It expanded my vision from, you know, thinking humanitarian innovation and climate innovation — to let's change the whole system.”

Lye’s background spans tech, telecommunications, and systems building, and he now works across humanitarian innovation, climate and ethical finance. One of Lye’s biggest takeaways was a shift from focusing on visible, tangible outputs to recognising the importance of systems, relationships, and soft leadership skills such as diplomacy, trust-building, and collaboration. This perspective now informs his work supporting climate-focused ventures and diaspora-led initiatives, ensuring that impact is rooted in local context rather than imposed from the outside.

“You start to see a bigger picture that goes beyond let's bring in European and Western technology that works well. We need to build climate systems into the conversation for organizations from the beginning. The Fellowship helped make that learning clearer.”

The Fellowship strengthened his ability to apply a climate and systems perspective in a commercial innovation context — enabling him to shape the strategic direction of a cross-border property tech venture by integrating climate considerations that had previously been overlooked.

Having worked across the Global North and Global South, Lye was already aware of the blind spots that often exist in climate and sustainability conversations. The programme helped him name those blind spots more clearly — and act on them:

“It has made me a better kind of analyst and negotiator in terms of talking soft diplomacy and trying to encourage idea exchanges between countries.”

Through his work with Offset Fashion, a circular fashion platform that resells high-value clothing and enables users to donate proceeds to charity, Lye applied his Fellowship learning by shifting the organization’s focus. Rather than starting with user experience and platform mechanics, he prioritised identifying civil society partners aligned with their audience — embedding social purpose more intentionally into the business model.

Lye has also partnered with startup Afrova.io Nigeria to integrate climate resilience and sustainability principles into real estate asset acquisition, guiding young African diasporans as they invest in Nigeria.

For Lye, the Fellowship reinforced a critical truth: lasting solutions are rarely built in silos. They emerge when people are willing to listen deeply, challenge assumptions, and work across difference.

Asking harder questions about impact

Kaidi Ru came into the Fellowship with strong technical expertise and a growing interest in public policy. Based in China, as Managing Director of SnT Consulting she brings sci-tech know-how, solution-oriented thinking and policy expertise to energy companies to innovate their business models and streamline their operations. What she left with was a more critical — and more courageous — way of interrogating impact.

“I think one of the things that the Fellowship emphasised was the importance of sustaining and scaling impact.”

The Fellowship encouraged her to look beyond impressive figures and bold claims, and instead ask: Who is involved in these initiatives? What processes were used and how? And where does the value really stay?

This mindset has since shaped how she approaches projects, collaborations, and research, and even opened doors to new opportunities. For Kaidi, the Fellowship was a springboard: not just to new networks, but to a deeper sense of responsibility for how climate solutions are designed and implemented.

“The programme also opened new doors for me as well. It actually led to my invitation to participate as a young climate innovator in the 2025 World Bank Innovate4Climate (I4C) conference in Seville in Spain”

Two further new roles followed the Fellowship for Kaidi. Last year, she was named a Global Future Energy Leader at the World Energy Council. And very recently, Kaidi was also selected as a Youth Foresight Navigator for the Asia-Pacific Region for an ILO Strategic Foresight Study.

Through group work and dialogue with Fellows from different regions and sectors, Kaidi began to question how concepts like “climate resilience” are often defined. She noticed how easily resilience is framed in financial terms — protecting portfolios, hedging risk — while overlooking the realities of communities on the front line of climate change.

“I especially liked the opportunity just to work with people from different and diverse backgrounds. It was a very nice opportunity and it prompted us to ask more questions and also piqued our interest in trying to figure out new ways to reform carbon markets”

In 2025 Kaidi became a member of the Global Advisory Council at ZNotes, an award-winning social impact startup providing free access to high-quality learning resources and peer-learning support for secondary school exams with six million users.

“For me, one thing that has always been on my mind is sustainability in education. So I think as a part of this role, this particular hat that I'm wearing, I think it's very important to educate young people about climate action and the urgency of climate change; and also to train and equip them with the skills and knowledge that they need to be able to navigate the very near future”

Kaidi highlights the importance of learning from each other. Reaching out to local people and communities, and not imposing our assumptions and beliefs on them.

“The Fellowship itself prepared me well for working in a cross-cultural and cross-time-zone setting and for the fast pace of collaborative work in these settings.”

Creating a place for these kind of conversations and an exchange of ideas between leaders from the Global South and Global North sits at the heart of The AFC Fellowship.

A shared thread: confidence, connection, and courage

Despite their different paths, all three Fellows point to common outcomes from The AFC Fellowship:.

• Greater confidence to act without waiting for authority


• A more relational, values-driven understanding of leadership


• The ability to work across sectors, cultures, and perspectives


• A commitment to impact that is inclusive, context-sensitive, and grounded in lived experience

Perhaps most importantly, the Fellowship helped them see themselves as part of something bigger: a growing community of leaders across Africa, the Global South and Global North, connected by shared challenges and a willingness to lead differently.

The AFC Fellowship is not simply supporting today’s leaders — it is shaping the leadership needed for tomorrow. Leaders who can navigate the challenges ahead, bridge divides and translate purpose into meaningful impact. Changing the world. As the challenges facing our societies grow more complex, so too must the leaders willing to take them on. The AFC Fellowship is equipping them to do exactly that.

If you would like to learn more about The AFC Fellowship visit: commonpurpose.org/the-afc-fellowship. And to learn more about the Africa Finance Corporation and the work they do visit: africafc.org