Founder & Managing Consultant

Lelanie
Basson.

Governance architect. AI strategist. Institution builder.

Founder and Managing Consultant of Twafiika Consultants, established in Windhoek in 2009. Lelanie advises governments, regulators, corporates and civil society organisations across Africa on strategy, digital transformation, governance and organisational leadership.

Based in Namibia & South Africa
MBA Business strategy
Practice Two decades of leadership
Lelanie Basson on stage at the Nedbank Future of Business Conference
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A rare ability to translate complex, multi-stakeholder environments into decision-ready strategies, practical roadmaps, and measurable outcomes.

Current roles & appointments

Active leadership across governance, technology and the African creative-industrial economy.

Women in AI Ambassador for Namibia
Women in AI (WAI)

National ambassador for Women in AI, advancing inclusion, visibility and leadership for women in artificial intelligence and emerging technology in Namibia.

New · 2026
Executive Vice Chairperson
Namibia Event Services Providers Association

Recently appointed Executive Vice Chairperson of NESPA, the industry body representing Namibia's events and experience economy.

New · 2026
Course Team · Postgraduate Diploma
NAMCOL · Leadership & Corporate Governance, NQF Level 8

Member of the course team developing the Namibian College of Open Learning's Postgraduate Diploma in Leadership and Corporate Governance at NQF Level 8.

National AI Strategy Advisor
National Commission on Research, Science & Technology (NCRST)

Advises on the development and operationalisation of Namibia's National AI Strategy.

Co-Founder
Trending Career Hub

AI-driven HR information systems platform serving clients across multiple African markets and the United States.

Strategic Partner
NIFA Academy · Bloomberg Education

Strategic partner in establishing and operationalising Africa's first Bloomberg Finance Lab at NUST. Equipped with 12 Bloomberg Terminals and offering BMC, BFF and ESG certifications.

Senior Lecturer (Part-time)
Namibia University of Science & Technology (NUST)

Strategic Management, Marketing for Logistics, Marketing for Financial Services, Consumer & Buyer Behaviour, Online Marketing, and Intercultural Communications & Negotiations.

Community & service
A heart for the work that matters most

Beyond formal appointments, Lelanie serves on multiple platforms advancing women, children, education and human rights. These include previous roles as Trustee of the human-rights organisation Positive Vibes Trust, now operating across 16 African countries; the MiLLi Trust (Media & Information Literacy Learning Initiative); Co-Feed Namibia; the Namibia Institute of Corporate Governance; and others. Community is at the heart of the practice.

Professional career

A two-decade career across private sector, public institutions, development finance and social enterprise.

2009 to Present
Twafiika Consultants
Founder & Managing Consultant
  • Boutique management consultancy serving energy, mining, financial services, telecoms, agriculture, fisheries, education, FMCG, tourism, civil society and public enterprise.
  • Strategic advisory, governance consulting, stakeholder engagement, digital transformation, communications, project management and enterprise development.
  • Lead consultant in establishing the Namibia Savings and Investment Association (NaSIA).
  • Co-Founder of the Namibia Institute of Corporate Governance (NICG).
  • Appointed Project Manager for the Presidential High-Level Panel on the Namibian Economy Summit, targeting USD 1 billion in new investments over 24 months.
2024 to Present
NIFA Academy · Bloomberg Education
Strategic Partner
  • Delivers financial literacy, investment readiness and capacity-building programmes for MSMEs.
  • Key partner in operationalising Africa's first Bloomberg Finance Lab at NUST (launched March 2025).
2023 to Present
Trending Career Hub
Co-Founder
  • AI-driven HRIS platform: talent management, recruitment intelligence, organisational effectiveness.
  • Active across multiple African markets and the United States.
2020 to Present
Harvard Corporate Learning · via Enterprise Dynamics
Business Development Associate
  • Represents Harvard Business Publishing's Harvard ManageMentor platform across African markets.
  • Delivers world-class leadership development and corporate training programmes to leading organisations.
2007 to 2025
Senior & executive roles across multiple sectors
Eighteen years in industry, prior to and alongside Twafiika
  • Venture building (Africa). MD of an academy and venture partner programme. Enterprise development, incubation and accelerator programme design.
  • Agriculture sector. Senior project manager. Led local, regional and global marketing initiatives and special projects. Opened and developed markets across the USA, Europe, the UAE and multiple African countries.
  • Communications regulator (Namibia). Head: Communications & External Relations at the national communications regulator. Established the Corporate Affairs division from the ground up. Led the country's first national consumer awareness campaign on telecommunications services.
Signature projects

Institution-building work that outlives the engagement.

Africa's First Bloomberg Finance Lab

Played a central role, as NIFA Academy Strategic Partner, in establishing Africa's first Bloomberg Finance Lab, launched at the NUST HTTPS Building in March 2025. A partnership with NUST, MTC, NIFA and RMB Namibia. Equipped with 12 Bloomberg Terminals and offering BMC, BFF and ESG certifications to Namibian youth, SMEs and the next generation of investment leaders.

High-Level Panel on the Namibian Economy

Twafiika Consultants was appointed Project Manager for the Presidential Summit under the theme "Economic Revival for Inclusive Growth, Strengthening the Namibian House." The private sector-led initiative targeted USD 1 billion in new investments over 24 months.

Namibia Institute of Corporate Governance

Co-Founder. Co-founded the NICG through a strategic partnership with the Institute of Directors in Southern Africa (IoDSA). The NICG promotes best practices in corporate governance and ethical leadership within the Namibian business community.

Namibia Savings & Investment Association

Lead consultant. Led the consulting work that established the Association, collapsing three industry bodies into a single representative body for the non-banking financial services industry in Namibia.

Positive Vibes Trust: scaling a regional player

Led the organisation's scaling from a Namibian trust to a regional African player, with a regional office in Cape Town. The organisation now runs projects in 16 countries across the continent, advancing the rights of people living with HIV, LGBT+ communities, sex workers, and adolescent girls and young women.

Co-Feed Namibia

Co-founded and designed the operational framework for this citizen-driven COVID-19 food security initiative in March 2020. Served on the core committee, leading operational design, stakeholder mobilisation and accountability systems. Reached over 70,000 Namibians across most regions.

MILLI*: Media & Information Literacy

Provided governance and stakeholder coordination support for this multi-partner initiative with 70+ active stakeholders. Supported a network of 1,000+ youth across Namibia, Lesotho, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast and Uganda. Governed by an independent trust with support from the Ministry of Education, College of the Arts and DW Akademie.

TEDx in Namibia

Co-lead. Co-lead in establishing TEDx events in the country: TEDxWindhoek, TEDxSwakopmund and TEDxUniversityofNamibia. Mentored University of Namibia students to lead their inaugural event in 2015 and beyond.

Speaking & thought leadership

From boardrooms and graduation ceremonies to tech summits and TEDx stages.

Speaking themes

  • AI & the future of work in Africa — on the rise, increasingly the most-requested topic
  • Women in technology: inclusion, visibility, leadership
  • Governance, institutional reform and accountability
  • Entrepreneurship, resilience and building on African terms
  • National strategy, economic development, investment climate
  • The ethics and policy of emerging technology

Lelanie speaks at roughly one engagement per month. The current schedule lives on her LinkedIn and the Twafiika Facebook page.

LinkedIn · @lelaniebasson Facebook · Twafiika Consultants

Selected flagship engagements

2026 · Hilton Windhoek
Women in Tech Summit 2026
Panelist · "She Builds the Future"
2027 · Eduvos, Durban Umhlanga
Eduvos Graduation Ceremony
Guest Speaker · Public Lecture
Nedbank Future of Business Conference
"AI for Human Resource Management"
Featured speaker on AI applications in HR strategy and operations.
Graduate & internship programme

Equipping the next cohort with the skills the workplace actually requires.

Since 2013, Twafiika has run a continuous Graduate & Internship Programme. Each cohort spends time inside the firm gaining the workplace-ready skills that classrooms can't teach: client communication, project discipline, professional judgement, the everyday craft of doing the work well.

It is a long-running, deliberately small intake. Many of those who came through the programme now hold senior roles in industry, government and the development sector. The intake refreshes year on year.

2013
Programme established
12+
Continuous cohorts
Ongoing
Annual intake
Recognition & media

A practitioner with a credible public voice.

HuffPost USA Contributor

Commentary and thought leadership on African entrepreneurship, women in business, and innovation.

Amazon Bestselling Author

Co-author of 20 Beautiful Women: Africa Edition (2016). Reached bestseller status in Women's Help, Motivation and Spiritual Healing.

Lionesses of Africa

Profiled as a pioneering African woman entrepreneur building a boutique management consultancy at international standards.

Namibian Business Hall of Fame

Nominee, assessed on business ethics, corporate performance, inspirational leadership, management and vision.

Namibian Laureate

Business and Entrepreneurship Initiative · 2013–2018.

Academic Publication

Published in International Marketing and Consumer Buyer Behaviour. Regular speaker and panelist at national and regional conferences.

Speaking, advisory or consulting

For partnership enquiries, please get in touch.

All speaking, advisory and consulting enquiries are routed through the Twafiika office.

info@twafiika.com