PMI Leadership Institute Meeting

The PMI Leadership Institute Meetings for Sub-Saharan Africa together with the PMI Global Summit Series Africa took place in Kigali, Rwanda during 16-18 August 2025.

PMI chapter leaders and PMI student club leaders in Sub-Saharan Africa leaders collaborated and expanded their networks by connecting with other project management professionals. The objective was to empower leaders with skills, gain insights into other regional activities and engage with the PMI team regarding project success discussions and leadership workshops, all aimed at strengthening the leadership abilities of participants.

Francois Venter, a final year STADIO B.Com. in Project Management student, attended the Leadership Meeting as the President of the PMI SA Chapter club for students. He presented how the PMI SA chapter student club was formed, its value, missions, and the current projects the club is engaging in. The meeting also allowed the PMI SA club president to network with other PMI student clubs in Sub-Saharan Africa, and thus gain insight into other projects.

Francois had the following to say about his experience:

"Real project success elevates the world! Every year, hundreds of millions of dollars of value are lost due to mismanaged projects. This reality, paired with the fact that were only 1.35% of Project Professionals in Africa are properly certified, may cause Africa to remain a cautionary tale on economic stagnation. This is a continent of untapped opportunity. Seeing it as poor is a misconception at the highest level. Poor management and corruption are to blame for the current economic conditions in this resource-rich region.

How do we change this. The most immediate solution is to properly prepare the young population of the future. Since Africa belongs to young Africans. 70% of her population are under the age of 30 years old, and yet we are either unemployed or largely unemployable due to poor training or attitudes such as entitlement, fear, or shortsighted expectations from our trainers. After meeting with 100s of Project Management professionals across Africa, I am convinced that there is real potential in Africa to become one of the greatest resource superpowers ever recorded in history, but for this dream to become reality, the youth must be trained correctly. Not coddled or pampered, but elevated through real and honest efforts to understand the value of hard work ethic, technological development, and scientific disciplines which help understand and solve problems. The youth must be humble enough to learn from the mistakes of the past, and use lessons learned as the cornerstones to build the future where, as Madiba said: "All her children may play together in the sun.””