An Under the Baobab inquiry · Convened by Lapid Leaders Africa
The Unbuilt
Future.
What will it take to shape Africa’s next chapter?
Africa has extraordinary people. Yet talent, ideas and resources do not automatically become institutions that work, enterprises that endure or opportunities that reach most people.
The question behind the inquiry
What must leaders build within and between institutions for talent, capital and ideas to become lasting opportunity?
People · Institutions · Futures
The work beneath the ambition
When systems fall short,
people carry the cost.
Families finance emergencies. Employees compensate for broken processes. Entrepreneurs spend resources overcoming barriers instead of growing their businesses.
The Unbuilt Future draws on the experience of African practitioners and institutional leaders. Through dialogues, insights and practical tools, we develop ideas that others can question, apply and build upon.
Featured conversation · Leadership & institutions
Beyond individual
excellence
Catherine Muraga · Dr. Anne Muendi Musuva
A recurring engineering skills gap led Catherine to work with universities. Unreliable hospital services led Anne to examine medicines, staff conditions, financing and accountability.
Different settings. A shared leadership challenge:
When the same problem keeps returning, what needs to change beyond our immediate response?
Explore their experiences of moving upstream, working across institutions and building capability others can carry forward.
Explore the conversation →What connects the conversations?
Lasting progress requires capable people—and the conditions that allow their contribution to grow. Across the dialogues, we examine how leadership, financing, incentives, behaviour and relationships shape what institutions can deliver.
The source conversations
Enter through your question
Five recorded dialogues with practitioners working across capital, energy, healthcare, technology, enterprise and behavioural science.
05 recorded dialoguesContributor profiles · Three ideas · Approximate recording chapters
Dialogue · Capital & energy
What must Africa build to turn potential into prosperity?
Amos Gachuiri · Dr. Tedd Moya
What institutions, investments and capabilities turn resources into lasting human opportunity?
Explore the conversation →Dialogue · Leadership & institutions
Beyond individual excellence
Catherine Muraga · Dr. Anne Muendi Musuva
How do we build systems that carry capability beyond an exceptional individual?
Explore the conversation →
Dialogue · Enterprise & capital
What must exist around ideas for them to grow?
Jeff Schon · Carol Ndirangu
How do creative ambition, appropriate capital and a sustainable business model come together?
Explore the conversation →
Dialogue · Behaviour & change
Why good solutions still fail
Francis Meyo
What turns knowledge and intention into behaviour that lasts?
Explore the conversation →
Dialogue · Partnerships & enterprise
Partnerships that open larger opportunities
Nelson Ashitiva
How can local firms assemble the capability to undertake more consequential work?
Explore the conversation →Insights · Follow an idea further
From experience to
a stronger argument
Reflections developing questions from the dialogues and examining what they mean for leaders, institutions and the opportunities we create.
Published reflection · Esther Mwaniki
We Have the Talent. So Why Aren’t We Building the Industries?
What must exist around creative talent for it to become enduring enterprise? Drawing on the Akili conversation, Esther examines financing, intellectual property, distribution and the infrastructure through which ideas reach markets.
Read on LinkedIn ↗Insight draft · 3 min read
Leadership & institutions
What survives the leader?
How individual excellence becomes capability others can carry.
Read the insight →Insight draft · 3 min read
Behaviour & change
Why good solutions still fail
The missing work between a worthwhile intention and sustained action.
Read the insight →Put the thinking to work
The Builder’s Audit
One system. One recurring problem. One credible move.
Choose an organisation, programme or shared challenge you influence. Use six questions to identify what deserves closer investigation.
01What is the system actually producing?
02Where are people compensating for what does not work?
03What might be causing the recurring problem?
04What change would matter to the people affected?
05What must we begin building for the future?
06What is one credible first move?
From inquiry to action
Where does this meet your work?
A leadership stretch, an institutional challenge or a shared opportunity.
Crossroads
Develop your next chapter
You may be taking on greater responsibility, reconsidering your direction or discovering that the strengths behind your individual success are no longer sufficient for what leadership now requires.
Crossroads helps experienced professionals clarify their next chapter and strengthen how they lead people, institutions and work beyond their own contribution.
The programme combines structured reflection, practical leadership development and peer learning.
Explore Crossroads ↗For your institution
Bring an institutional challenge
A recurring problem. A strategic decision. Leadership capability that needs to grow.
We welcome conversations with organisations examining leadership capability, strategy and institutional development. An initial discussion helps establish where Lapid could contribute and what the work would require.
Discuss your context →Some opportunities require expertise, resources and relationships across several institutions. Tell us what you want to make possible, who could benefit and the contribution you envisage.
Part of something larger
Under the Baobab.
Beyond the room.
1 million
Meaningful opportunities
By 2030
Under the Baobab is working towards an ambitious goal: mobilising leaders and institutions to create one million meaningful opportunities for Africa’s next generation by 2030.
The Unbuilt Future contributes by examining—and developing ideas about—the leadership, institutions and conditions that enable those opportunities to emerge, endure and reach more people.
The inquiry welcomes practitioners across sectors and generations. Women of Purpose is a major gathering within this wider work.
At the Women of Purpose Summit on 9 October 2026, women brought their experiences to three connected responsibilities.
Build Self. Build Institutions. Build Futures.
The gathering sharpened questions about making purpose part of everyday practice, creating room for others to lead and preparing the next generation for changing opportunities.
Bring us your question
What are you working
through?
Tell us the challenge or opportunity, the decision it affects and where a conversation could help.
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