We are excited to announce the Leadership Council for Africa Tech Festival 2026, a group of visionary leaders dedicated to amplifying the voices shaping Africa's tech ecosystem. The Council helps shape the strategic direction of the festival, ensuring the conversations reflect the realities, priorities, and opportunities defining Africa’s digital economy.

Continuing the celebrations, we sat down with three esteemed members of the council, Bunmi Adeleye, David Behr, and Faith Burn, to hear their thoughts on the festival’s influence, the challenges facing Africa’s tech ecosystem, and the opportunities for transformative impact.

Bridging Gaps and Driving Execution: The Festival's Role in Africa's Tech Ecosystem

For David Behr, the festival’s greatest potential lies in its ability to address the structural barriers that hinder the growth of Africa’s tech ecosystem. “The festival's biggest opportunity is to bridge the gap between the supply side and the demand side of Africa's technology market. The connectivity and infrastructure community is well served. The enterprise and public sector buyer is not. These buyers are making increasingly complex decisions across cloud, security, and AI, but they face fragmented regulation, currency complexity, thin local integration capability, and a trust deficit that makes every procurement decision harder than it would be in more mature markets,” he explains.

Behr believes the festival can become indispensable by fostering honest discussions, sharing real case studies, and providing actionable insights. “If the festival can become the place where those challenges are discussed honestly, with real case studies and real numbers, it becomes indispensable for enterprise leaders. The same structural barriers hold back startups. Africa has continental scale, but regulatory fragmentation and market-by-market complexity break that scale into pieces. I want to see African-born technology companies grow into genuinely large businesses, and that means tackling the barriers that prevent a startup working in one market from expanding across ten. The festival is uniquely positioned to connect enterprise buyers, startups, and infrastructure providers around that shared problem.”

Bunmi Adeleye sees the festival as a platform to move beyond conversation into coordinated action. “Africa Tech Festival has a unique opportunity to move beyond conversation into coordinated action. By convening policymakers, operators, investors, and innovators within a shared platform, the festival can help align priorities around critical areas such as infrastructure gaps, access to growth capital, talent development, and digital inclusion, particularly within Africa’s fast-evolving consumer markets,” she explains.

“To truly amplify its impact, the focus must shift to execution. This means driving clear commitments, enabling cross-market partnerships, and supporting measurable initiatives that extend beyond the event into sustained, year-round delivery. Africa does not lack innovation; it lacks execution at scale. The real opportunity is closing that gap.”

Faith Burn highlights the festival’s role as a powerful platform for connecting policymakers, investors, and innovators. “The challenge for us is how we work together to bring alignment which will open opportunities to unlock real scalable progress,” she explains. Burn believes Africa does not lack innovation but needs intentional creation of connected pathways to scale it. “We need to embrace the dismantling of fragmentation, and this platform is a catalyst for opening up such connections and conversations.”

Partnerships and Discussions to Watch

When asked about the initiatives and discussions they are most excited about, the leaders emphasised the importance of practical, scalable solutions and meaningful conversations.

David Behr is looking forward to conversations at the intersection of AI, enterprise technology, and multi-market operations. “The conversations at the intersection of AI, enterprise technology, and multi-market operations. How cloud, security, and AI are actually being deployed across different African markets, not in theory but in practice. What works in South Africa doesn't automatically work in Nigeria or Ghana, and the operational detail of navigating that complexity barely gets discussed anywhere,” he notes. “I'd also like to see the enterprise and cybersecurity pillars connected more tightly. Security isn't a standalone topic for enterprise buyers. It's embedded in every cloud migration, every managed service decision, and every data sovereignty conversation.”

Bunmi Adeleye is particularly keen to see partnerships that bridge traditional industries with technology-enabled platforms. “In my experience leading large-scale transformation across retail and consumer businesses, this is where some of the most significant untapped growth opportunities exist across the continent,” she says. “We do not need more pilots. We need scalable, commercially viable models that work in real market conditions.”

Faith Burn is consistently curious about AI, governance, ethics, and the answers to critical questions such as, “Who really owns the data and who benefits from the data?” She is also keen to engage in platforms that aim to elevate women, youth, and startups.

Shaping the Festival's Direction

As members of the Leadership Council, Adeleye, Behr, and Burn are committed to shaping the festival’s content and outcomes in meaningful ways.

David Behr is focused on ensuring the enterprise content reflects the realities of technology decision-making across Africa. “I want to help shape the enterprise content so it reflects how technology decisions are actually made across Africa, not how vendors want to present them. That means helping identify enterprise and public sector speakers from across the continent who bring the practitioner perspective, and pushing for formats that go beyond panels into operational case studies and peer-to-peer discussion,” he explains. “I'd also like to help broaden the geographic centre of gravity. The pan-African enterprise story is underrepresented, and I can bring perspectives from across MTN's markets.”

Bunmi Adeleye is equally passionate about fostering collaboration between corporates, startups, and investors to drive tangible business outcomes. “I am also keen to help shape themes and sessions that drive tangible business outcomes, while fostering stronger collaboration between corporates, startups, and investors to accelerate real market impact. The markets that succeed will be those shaped not just by innovators, but by operators who understand how to scale in complexity.”

Faith Burn aims to ensure the themes, topics, and speakers at the festival are relevant, pragmatic, and inclusive. “I see myself as a connector between private and public sectors and have an appreciation of some of the nuances across borders in Africa, having had roles that encompassed the Africa region,” she explains.

Exciting Updates to Look Forward To

All three leaders are bringing exciting developments to the festival this year.

David Behr highlights MTN’s transformation from a connectivity provider to a full-service enterprise ICT partner. “MTN's enterprise business is transforming from connectivity provider to full-service enterprise ICT partner across our African markets, with AI increasingly embedded in how we deliver cloud, security, and managed services. By November we'll have more to share. I'd rather speak to real outcomes closer to the event than make promises now.”

Bunmi Adeleye will share insights from a significant market transition and strategic repositioning of a large-format retail business following the exit of a multinational operator. “This involves refocusing the network through a disciplined shrink-to-grow strategy to build a more efficient, locally responsive, and sustainable model,” she explains. “In parallel, I am developing the Atunda Strategic Intelligence Platform, focused on enabling better decision-making through data-driven insights across complex consumer markets. In my experience, the real opportunity in Africa’s consumer markets is not just scale, but building systems that can scale sustainably in complexity. I look forward to sharing insights from this journey, particularly on navigating complex transitions, unlocking value in consumer markets, and scaling digital capabilities in high-growth, dynamic environments.”

Faith Burn is excited to explore the festival’s focus on AI, governance, and ethics, as well as initiatives that elevate women, youth, and startups. She is particularly interested in discussions that address the ownership and benefits of data, and how these issues shape Africa’s digital future.

Conclusion

Africa Tech Festival 2026 promises to be a transformative event, bringing together diverse voices to tackle the continent’s most pressing tech challenges. With leaders like Bunmi Adeleye, David Behr, and Faith Burn shaping its direction, the festival is poised to drive meaningful action, foster collaboration, and unlock Africa’s immense potential.

Bunmi, David, and Faith join 14 other diverse experts to represent the many voices across African Tech, listed below. Click here for more information about our leadership council.

Charles Murito, Google
Lavina Ramkissoon, African Union
Mary Mahuma, Philip Morris South Africa
Nina Triantis, Standard Bank Group
Nicolas Pompigne Mognard, APO Group
Nollie Maoto, FirstRand Compliance Office
Nomsa Chabeli, South African Broadcasting Corporation
Olabode Ojo, IHS Towers
Philip Besiimire, Vodacom Tanzania
President Ntuli, Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Ravi Bhat, Microsoft South Africa
Richard Cazalet, Telkom SA
Sandile Dube, Equinix
Wellington Makamure, Cassava Technologies

Join us this November to be part of the conversation and the solution. Click Here