**Strengthening how leaders and institutions think, decide and deliver on sustainability through academia, policy and practice.**
**Academia:**
- **Lecturer in Strategy at the University of Edinburgh Business School**, investigating how strategic leaders navigate sustainability challenges, leading ESG-focused curriculum for 200+ students annually and driving institutional initiatives through the Business School's Ethics, Responsibility and Sustainability Committee.
**Policy:**
- **Non-executive board member at the Student Awards Agency Scotland**, currently providing strategic oversight on the £1B public funding scheme supporting 170,000+ students annually, advising on performance metrics, equity outcomes, and policy alignment to ensure inclusive and effective delivery.
- **Non-executive board member at Historic Environment Scotland**, currently supporting the integration of climate risk and sustainability into the £70m Corporate Plan, contributing to the Audit, Risk and Assurance Committee, and shaping ESG frameworks for £14m in grant funding and £60m in commercial activity within the heritage sector.
**Practice:**
- **4 years as an advisory council member at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation**, shaping ESG governance for a $1B public media portfolio by assessing digital disruption risks, and advising senior leadership on integrating social sustainability into programming strategy viewed by over 4 million Australians weekly.
- **3 years as non-executive director and chairperson of the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers Community in Australia**, overseeing governance for 7 regional hubs and 250 members, establishing 3 national board committees, and leading the rollout of a nationwide financial governance system to boost transparency and operational consistency.
- **3 years as founder and managing director of the Council for Young Africans Living Abroad**, delivering leadership programmes to 800+ African youth across 20+ countries, running 30+ ESG-aligned workshops, and building a volunteer team of 30+ to support scalable, multi-city operations.
- **1 year as co-founder and CEO of Funetics**, an AI-driven edtech startup improving language access for diverse learners; led a 5-person team, secured £20,000 in seed funding, and laid the foundation for what later became Language Confidence, which has raised $1.5M USD in follow-on investment.
- **2 years as a sustainability strategy and blockchain governance consultant**, designing transparent decision-making models for ESG-focused communities, engaging 1000+ stakeholders globally, and supporting go-to-market efforts that generated over $1M USD in aligned impact-driven sales.
**Contact:**
- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/)
- [Email](https://www.business-school.ed.ac.uk/staff/nkosana-mafico)