Tiyani Majoko, a participant in the 2017 Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders at the University of Notre Dame, is an attorney from South Africa who specializes in law, non-governmental organization (NGO) management, and consulting. In this video, she discusses scaling up her business, learning to depend on others, and what surprised her about the American business community.
After noticing a need for South Africa’s legal industry to adapt to new, flexible models of practicing law more in line with the climate, challenges, and characteristics of a developing nation, Majoko founded her own firm, Lawgistics Legal Consultants. The firm provides legal advisory services to small and medium-sized companies, with a primary focus on companies in the mining and energy sectors. In 2015, she also founded a non-profit initiative called BlackOut, which aims to provide practical solutions for entrepreneurs to network, engage, and share ideas and solutions.
Since 2014, the Notre Dame Initiative for Global Development (NDIGD) has worked closely with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and its implementing partner, IREX, to bring the Mandela Washington Fellowship, the flagship program of the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI), to Notre Dame. The fellowship empowers young African leaders through academic coursework, leadership training, and networking opportunities.
The program is highly competitive, and the U.S. Department of State received more than 64,000 applications for only 1,000 placements across the country for the 2017 fellowship. Notre Dame’s class of 2017 Mandela Washington Fellows, 11 men and 14 women, came to campus from 20 countries across sub-Saharan Africa.
In 2016, the fellowship staff received a Presidential Team Irish Award for "exemplifying the University of Notre Dame’s core values on behalf of [NDIGD] and the University."
The Notre Dame Initiative for Global Development — an integral part of the new Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame — promotes human development and dignity among people worldwide through applied innovations, impact evaluation, education, and training that help build just and equitable societies.
Contact: Luis Ruuska, communications specialist, Notre Dame Initiative for Global Development, lruuska@nd.edu