Acha Leke is a senior partner in McKinsey’s Johannesburg office and supports clients in our Public Sector, Social Sector, and Private Equity Practices, among others. As a member of the McKinsey Global Institute Council, Acha also advises MGI on research related to productivity, competitiveness, and growth, particularly in African economies. He started his McKinsey career as a summer associate in the Johannesburg office in 1998, and rejoined the firm in Atlanta in August 1999. He transferred back to Johannesburg in January 2002 to help expand the firm’s activities across Sub Saharan Africa. He relocated to Lagos in 2010 to open up the firm’s newly established office in Nigeria, and returned to South Africa in 2014.
Acha serves governments, multinational organizations, and private sector institutions across Africa on issues of economic development, growth strategies, holistic transformations, and investment decisions. He has worked across over 20 African countries to date.
He is a co-founder and member of the Board of the African Leadership Academy, a co-educational boarding school which aims to develop the next generation of African leaders. He is also a co-founder of the African Leadership Network, an invitation-only network of young African leaders who aspire to bring prosperity to the Continent. He is a World Economic Forum (WEF) Young Global Leader, and has received numerous other recognitions in recent years.
Acha has worked closely with MGI on a number of reports, and was one of the authors of MGI’s highly acclaimed “Lions on the move: The progress and potential of African economies” report. He is currently a member of the WEF’s Regional Agenda Council on Africa and of ONE’s Africa Policy Advisory Board.
Prior to joining McKinsey, Acha was a part-time consultant at Pacific Monolithics, Inc. and Spectrian Corporation working on novel techniques to linearize high power amplifiers for wireless applications. He completed his PhD in electrical engineering from Stanford University.