# Leading Better Together: Leadership as a Collective Act | 2026 Cornerstone Conference

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l0-Ccqhil0

[00:01] Good morning everyone and welcome.
[00:05] I am Shamachi, CEO of Duke Corporate Education, part of Duke University and a member of IWF UK and South Africa.
[00:23] So before we begin, I would also like to say thank you to IWF UK Forum for convening this gathering for such a powerful day yesterday.
[00:37] You must all attest to that.
[00:40] They deserve a huge round of applause.
[00:49] My work focuses on leadership at the intersection of leadership and transformation and people centered change particularly how leaders navigate complexity and shape meaningful futures.
[01:04] In especially right now in a rapidly changing connected world.
[01:10] It is an absolute privilege to moderate today's session alongside such remarkable leaders and hear their perspectives as well and their insights.
[01:21] We are all living through a period of profound change shaped by technology, global shifts, economic pressures and the changing societal expectation.
[01:33] And perhaps what defines this moment, it is not simply the pace of change but how connected everything has become.
[01:43] And that is changing the nature of leadership itself.
[01:50] Leadership today is no longer about expertise or authority or even it's about thinking about it in a way that how collectively we could lead together both with clarity and most.
[02:06] Importantly with humanity.
[02:10] It is now my pleasure to welcome our panelist who bring perspectives from technology, global shifts, uh, global affairs, business and social impact and transformation.
[02:26] Welcome, Miss Jessica Redella, global technology executive at IBM, was leading at the forefront of technology, AI, digital transformation, championing responsible use of innovation and striving progress to expand human potential that contributes to a better world.
[02:51] Welcome.
[02:53] Thank you, Jessica.
[02:57] Thank you.
[02:57] Miss Dello Dell Mataku, Deputy High Commissioner of South Africa, the UK and Ireland, who brings deep insights into
[03:07] Leadership, global affairs and social progress, and reminds us that when women rise, communities, economies, and societies rise with them.
[03:21] Welcome Deputy High Commissioner and Miss Shamine Ovette, a senior director for Africa at Cisco, which sits at the intersection of technology and humanity.
[03:39] She's also the co-founder of mentoring circle AI leadership club initiatives focusing on building inclusive leadership, strengthening communities, and encouraging society to take responsibility for shaping a better future.
[03:55] Welcome.
[03:57] Thank you.
[04:01] Lady Linda Wong Davis, founder and chairperson of KT Wong Foundations.
[04:08] Whose work across creativity, culture, social impact highlights the importance of developing human capabilities in a world shaped by change, innovation, and why creativity is the new currency going forward.
[04:25] Welcome, Lady Linda.
[04:28] Thank you.
[04:32] So what does leadership require from us now in a world that is more connected, more complex, and more human than ever before?
[04:47] Jessica, based on your own leadership journey, what does it take for organizations to move from rewarding individual excellence to scaling collective intelligence?
[05:00] That's such a timely question and I think if we look at collective intelligence, it doesn't automatically come because you hire smart people.
[05:07] It's
[05:10] A system design challenge.
[05:14] And early on in my career, I think I equated really strong leadership with being the first in the room to solve the hardest problems.
[05:24] Um, if the stakes were high, if things were complex, I would drive forward and volunteer and jump in wherever I could because initially responsiveness equates to momentum.
[05:35] And eventually when you try to scale that, it actually becomes a bottleneck.
[05:41] Um, and this came through in a recent situation I was dealing with where we had a major transformation initiative.
[05:48] There were a lot of dependencies on lots of different types of people.
[05:52] We had technical, we had operations, we had procurement.
[05:55] Um, and everyone was incredibly talented, incredibly smart, but very siloed.
[06:00] And the progress depended on a very select few who were at the critical inflection points that knew everything, but there were maybe only one or two people who could be really, really detailed and know.
[06:12] All of the deep technical nuances.
[06:17] And I was contributing to this bottleneck because unintentionally I trained the organization to route everything through me.
[06:26] I was optimizing for speed so that I was that one person who was connecting with the individual silos.
[06:34] But I had a breakthrough in this moment because the solution is not doing it in this way.
[06:39] The solution is redesigning how intelligence can actually move through the organization.
[06:45] And what this means is how do we implement clearer governance, transparency, accountability so that knowledge is not sitting with one person or the few but really the system itself is able to carry this context.
[06:59] And I think this changed my point of view that the best leader is not creating dependency on themselves but really they're creating environments where intelligence can compound across the organization.
[07:11] And if we look at how AI
[07:14] And the shifts of emerging technology play into this, what we see is that AI can significantly increase output.
[07:23] But if the accountability and workflows and structures and leadership beneath them doesn't change, we're just creating bottlenecks.
[07:33] And so I'll just close on saying that we're shifting to a collective intelligence.
[07:38] We're moving away from hero mentality and towards becoming the architect of the system itself.
[07:45] So then Jessica, why do organizations still default back to individual performance versus shared outcome?
[07:54] You know, we still see that happening all the time.
[07:58] You know, it's about, you know, the individual versus we do.
[08:03] And I think what it comes down to is when we're under pressure, we tend to reward who is solving the immediate problem.
[08:13] When the stakes are high, we revert back.
[08:15] To that hero culture that I mentioned.
[08:18] Um, who stayed online the longest, who showed up earliest, who knows the answer to everything.
[08:25] That's who we deem the high performer.
[08:28] And I think that oftentimes this actually indicates structural failure, not organizational health.
[08:34] If one person is absorbing the complexity, the organization's not scaled; it's actually created that dependency.
[08:41] And with AI accelerating this pace, organizations can increase output, but if you don't redesign how we're incentivizing and structuring decisions, the same people are carrying the cognitive load.
[08:56] And so this has led to an inflection point for me as a conscious leader to say there are two different models of how we can approach this.
[09:03] We can either reward the individual that's jumping in and solving the problem, or we can reward people who are thinking about how do I redesign the condition so the problem no longer occurs.
[09:13] And that is really at the heart.
[09:16] Of all of this.
[09:18] I think organizations that activate collective intelligence that are rewarding clarity, context sharing, building communities, um that's when we actually see change.
[09:30] And when success is dependent on one person, we can't sustain innovation and growth at scale.
[09:36] We have to open it up to the community.
[09:37] Absolutely.
[09:39] And I think I love that piece around community because I think the whole notion about us taking responsibilities we serve bigger than just the individual.
[09:49] Deputy High Commissioner in your work in moments where your leadership genuinely were tested when stakes were high and alignment in fragile what anchors you personally to keep people at the table uh focused on issues of mutual interest.
[10:09] Um thank you Dr. Shamla and it's such an honor to be sitting today here at the IWF cornerstone conference.
[10:18] I think diplomacy teaches us that leadership is fundamentally about people and relationships.
[10:27] We often think diplomacy belongs in foreign policy, but increasingly the same skills are being used in business, in government and institutions.
[10:41] In the current global context, I find myself in boardrooms more with CEOs than with foreign governments because of the intercontinent interconnectivity of the issues that we are currently dealing with.
[11:01] So leadership has required us to listen more and to lean in.
[11:05] To lean in to the business side, to lean into the government side, and to find a common ground between foreign policy, economic, resilience.
[11:19] AI, cuz all these issues are interconnected and I think it's going to be increasingly crucial for women in this room who are leading organizations to lean in more into ambassadors in the various countries they come from, in the various countries their businesses operate in because the world no longer operates in silo.
[11:49] We all have to sit in the same room and collectively find the solutions.
[11:55] In my work, leadership often requires me to bring stakeholders who at the beginning of the conversation have very different priorities.
[12:07] And my role is to create trust because it is only trust that will keep us at the table even at the time where we are.
[12:19] So different in perspective and so different in what we think the outcome will be.
[12:30] So the leadership that is required today is for us to be conveners more than to be individual talent.
[12:40] So the power of convening has become so critical.
[12:45] Yeah.
[12:47] And I, you know, listened to you a bit earlier as well.
[12:49] I think the piece around convening is that you talked about it about how do you become a better listener, right?
[12:55] And I think the piece around, you know, clarity, right, uh, you know, uh, this you said that even in your role the new skills, it's not about AI, it's around human centered capabilities that are going to drive and being more empathetic even when you disagree, right?
[13:18] And I love that, you know, a bit earlier.
[13:20] So, thank you so much.
[13:20] Much for for sharing that perspective.
[13:23] Shmaine, as we stand at the intersection of profound technology changes that are happening right now and the human change, how do you as a leader are using technology to ensure that decisions are becoming more human are not less?
[13:42] Thank you, Dr. Chetty.
[13:44] And and I'm going to pick up on what DHC and Jessica spoke about just around communities and it's alarming and Jessica I I'm not sure if you come across this but often times as technology leaders and and as technology advocates we outsource a certain superpower to AI.
[14:05] So often times we often heard in meetings saying AI is going to take your job.
[14:07] AI is fundamentally changing how we live, how we work, how we play.
[14:13] And we often times forget that there is humanity leading AI.
[14:18] And therefore the fundamental
[14:20] Question that arrests us especially as women is how then do we undertake an AI revolution that has to be led by women and youth.
[14:33] And deputy high commissioner, if you look across the continent, um, by 2030 we're predicting that between 300 to 500 million of South Africa's, of Africa's, uh, um, population is going to be youth, and therefore how do we charge the youth, um, to ensure that they're using technology to heal and not to fracture?
[14:53] We heard yesterday the alarming stories of how technology, specifically AI, is using to divide.
[15:04] But then a big component of the work I'm doing, especially, Dr., with the AI Leadership Club that you and I actually co-founded.
[15:10] At that point in time, we didn't know much about AI, but what we did know is that it is going to fundamentally change how Africa and the rest of the world actually does interact.
[15:22] With each other.
[15:24] And it's also encouraging at the same time to see youth leading with intention.
[15:29] But that can only happen when we set or when even when we as women stop actually giving our power away to the people who own the code and the people who manipulate the code.
[15:42] So oftentimes we give we we're not even giving input into how the code is developed, how the code is owned, who owns that type of code.
[15:51] And so my work across the continent is to ensure that I collaborate with intention.
[15:56] And I love your call out deputy high commissioner because the question I'm asked by heads of state on a regular basis.
[16:02] I look after Africa, all 54 countries across the continent.
[16:06] And the question I'm asked the most is how can I slow down AI?
[16:08] How can I stop AI?
[16:11] Um, which is which is alarming, right?
[16:14] Um, especially when you think of the absolute potential that I brings to a continent.
[16:20] And so, Dr. Chetty, we seeing the youth that we
[16:22] Convene in these forums.
[16:25] And I think back to an evening we had a young gentleman who started an app called Buller books, and he started this because he came from a very fragile community, and um, we have 11 official languages in South Africa.
[16:41] The class was not being taught in his official language.
[16:43] And so, of course, corporal punishment was metered out in those days, and he had a strategy to actually focus and concentrate on the teacher who metered out the softest corporal punishment.
[16:55] And so he thought, the one who beats me the hardest, I'm going to get his lessons, but the one who I can take his beating, I'm going to avoid it.
[17:03] And so he started bullet books to ensure that children in classrooms can learn in all 11 official languages.
[17:10] Um, you know, these are the things you look at the girls from I'm the code we think code who are actually moving organizations forward, bringing women from the margins into the mainstream, teaching them how to code, teaching them how to own the algorithms and not give away their power.
[17:23] Understanding that women and youth in these communities do have agency to be part of um the revolution of the fourth industrial revolution.
[17:32] I look at a young lady we started work with about three years ago who was feeding roughly 50 um to 100 um school children in a very fragile poverty-stricken community in in Nairobi, Kenya.
[17:45] Today she feeds close to 620,000 children a day who actually take some of the food home, all made possible by technology.
[17:55] So I think what is essential yeah it's it's actually really phenomenal stats, really phenomenal stats what a lot of the youngsters who are led with intention, who understand their own agency, who understand that technology has the ability to heal and and that's the opportunity I'm so grateful for.
[18:13] And I and I think the the piece that also is that you know when we thinking about the the humanity and we thinking about the future it is not leaving it to just one person.
[18:22] It is our.
[18:25] Responsibility is our communities and communities are fundamentally important of the bigger ecosystem because if we, you know, I and I think the piece around the AI club, the AI club really started convening corporates, you know, business leaders, you know, individual and small businesses as well as the community to say we are at the intersection of this change.
[18:56] It is not going to get stopped; it's going to go faster, and if data centers are going to be built in communities, what is our role as well?
[19:03] So I think for me it was actually changing that whole mindset to say it is not stopping; it is going at speed, but how do we lean in collectively?
[19:12] And I think, Jessica, we also talked about the cyber risk as well, and in making sure that when you protect one, how do you protect all?
[19:20] Yes, right.
[19:23] I think that for me is fundamentally important.
[19:24] Lady Linda Wong, your work through KT
[19:27] Wong Foundation brings together diverse artist.
[19:31] We have seen this in communities.
[19:32] What an impressive you know the work that you do and you don't they don't always naturally align.
[19:42] Your work demonstrate that progress is not at automatic.
[19:44] It is a choice that we you know one has to make.
[19:48] So what have you learned about how leaders, you know, can genuinely convene across differences and truly move forward together?
[19:59] You know, Jessica talked about collective intelligence.
[20:00] Can you share a little bit more on that?
[20:04] Thank you, Shambla.
[20:05] Um I'm the founder of the Katy Wong Foundation which was um uh created to to bring cultural and create and produce cultural platforms bringing together different countries together in exchange through cultural exchange and diplomacy.
[20:24] So I'm a serial producer I suppose at the end of the day and I sit here and I looking at I'm
[20:29] looking at all these extraordinary women
[20:31] and all the um leadership qualities that
[20:34] they have and I it's inherent I think in
[20:38] any of us we just need to burnish it. I
[20:41] think that um look thinking about for
[20:43] being in the forefront and I do love it.
[20:46] This coin was obviously coined by a man.
[20:49] It's called soft power. There's nothing
[20:51] soft about it. Okay. Absolutely not. We
[20:55] I I don't want to be jumping all over
[20:57] the place, but we do live in the most
[20:59] extraordinary times where things the the
[21:02] the the values that we hold, the the
[21:06] structures that we know have all gone
[21:08] astray, arai, and none better than in uh
[21:13] President Trump's visit to China. I
[21:16] hasten to say also that my foundation uh
[21:19] its focus is to bring China into the
[21:21] 21st century and to bring the world to
[21:24] China better and understanding through
[21:27] the youth principally through the youth
[21:30] but not completely and I talk I I'm
[21:34] listening with um great um interest what
[21:37] you said about
[21:39] you know the African youth and so what
[21:41] the KT Wong Foundation has done in the
[21:43] last few years is that I I sat there
[21:47] having had a home in South Africa for
[21:49] over 30 years and I'm seeing the
[21:52] enormous cult economic impact that China
[21:55] has throughout the whole continent of
[21:57] Africa and yet what are they doing about
[22:01] understanding Africa better not very
[22:03] much okay and so it's all hearsay you
[22:07] know just talking nothing re really
[22:10] concrete I decided then a few years ago
[22:13] what we're going to do is to bring
[22:15] through African contemporary
[22:17] photography. I would like to bring an
[22:20] exhibition to China and we staged the
[22:22] biggest African photography show ever to
[22:25] be brought to China to show the youth in
[22:28] China which is also enormous.
[22:31] what real really young Africans
[22:34] throughout the entire continent really
[22:36] think about themselves, how they view
[22:39] the world and you know what is the
[22:42] future going forward for them and so we
[22:45] are trying as a producer for the KT Wong
[22:48] Foundation to get beyond these
[22:50] stereotypes the usual tropes we all have
[22:53] these images of what I'm just using
[22:55] Africa as a as an example and it has it
[22:59] was received extremely
[23:01] warmly and was very successful in
[23:03] Shanghai and now we've gone on to other
[23:07] other cities because here then in China
[23:10] they then realize that images of Africa
[23:13] it's not just about animals it's not
[23:15] just wonderful landscapes not about
[23:17] safaris you know so really you've got to
[23:20] go beyond it they're so invested in it
[23:23] and in chi in China I see these big
[23:25] banners we welcome our African brothers
[23:28] but really they need to listen And this
[23:31] is what I feel the work that we I do is
[23:34] to bring together, you know, to find the
[23:37] right sort of project that will speak to
[23:40] a society. This this society being a
[23:44] Chinese confusion-led society trying to
[23:48] get into the 21st century and they are
[23:51] speeding ahead. This juggernaut, you
[23:54] can't stop it. And I think Trump has
[23:56] realized that we better join them rather
[23:59] than try and beat them. And I'm very
[24:01] happy to say that we've been doing many
[24:03] more things. We brought Chinese um great
[24:06] cultural uh um projects from China to
[24:09] the Edinburgh festival over here all
[24:11] throughout Europe. So in terms of being
[24:13] a leader, it's trying to harness trying
[24:16] to harness if you have to vision trying
[24:18] to harness all these individual talent
[24:21] and the and the more skillful they are,
[24:23] the more talented they are, the more
[24:25] difficult they are to manage as you
[24:29] and so you know you need to be able to
[24:32] understand all of this and that human
[24:34] element the empathy AI can do so much
[24:37] and we mustn't disregard that because
[24:39] that even in the performing arts,
[24:43] even in the performing arts, we need to
[24:45] deal with it. But at the end of the day,
[24:48] who inputs all this AI stuff, it's us.
[24:52] All right? And so there was great
[24:54] discussion last evening about what needs
[24:57] to be done, what you you're doing
[24:59] yourself. Um and so we we need to be um
[25:04] collectively coming together to
[25:06] understand not just in business
[25:09] situations but in the performing arts
[25:11] because I deeply believe that at the end
[25:14] of the day to really touch a country's
[25:19] or people's hearts you really need to
[25:21] find that key and to find that lock.
[25:24] Once you found that and that lock needs
[25:27] to be then inserted in and gently opened
[25:29] then the heart will open then the brain
[25:32] will understand or try and understand
[25:35] but beyond that we're so mired in so
[25:38] many stereotypes.
[25:40] Thank
[25:40] that's my
[25:41] thank you so much for the your profound
[25:43] words and I I'm a huge admirer of the
[25:47] work that you do especially in the
[25:49] community and especially in an industry
[25:52] that you are scaling as well. I think
[25:55] for me it is not just about the work
[25:58] it's around how do you get scale
[26:00] creativity because you also talked about
[26:04] you know about humanity if you know
[26:06] regarding creativity
[26:08] may I just say a very quick word is that
[26:10] all right do I have time about just very
[26:13] quick one
[26:13] one word we brought from the national
[26:16] theater here in the UK a great play uh
[26:20] based on the novel of Frankenstein a
[26:22] novel written in the 19th century by a
[26:24] 19year-old girl about the creation of a
[26:29] new being, a human being, sort of human
[26:33] being with no recourse to any deity or
[26:36] god. It was it was designed and created
[26:39] by man. And this was during the
[26:41] industrial revolution to the UK of
[26:43] Britain. And I decided I would bring
[26:46] this play to China about 10 years ago.
[26:50] And it was why did I decide to do that?
[26:53] because I felt that all the similarities
[26:56] that I was seeing that China was going
[26:58] through its own industrial revolution
[27:00] and the world now is going through its
[27:02] own industrial revolution. We are now
[27:05] facing
[27:07] a complete dismemberment. Well, that's
[27:09] also very relevant to Frankenstein,
[27:12] you know, to um of and and the putting
[27:15] the new putting the new ethical frames
[27:17] that we need to to to deal with. Thank
[27:20] you. That's my thing. Lady Linda Wong,
[27:22] as I reflect on today's conversation,
[27:25] I'm reminded that the greatest risk
[27:28] facing leadership, it is not technology,
[27:32] it is us losing our humanity while
[27:36] advancing it. How do we protect it? I
[27:39] think we're entering a future where
[27:40] machines will become more intelligent,
[27:43] systems more automated and change will
[27:46] happen at a speed. But leaders would
[27:49] truly shape the future will not be
[27:52] remembered only for what they built.
[27:55] They will be remembered for dignity, how
[27:58] they've protected it, the trust they've
[28:01] created, and humanity they choose to
[28:03] preserve. Leading better together is not
[28:08] a weakness. It is the courage to listen,
[28:12] to share power, to build across
[28:15] differences, to recognize that no single
[28:18] leader can solve complexity of the
[28:22] future alone. So perhaps the real
[28:24] transformation we are being called
[28:27] forward is not from tradition to
[28:30] technology but from leadership centered
[28:33] on individual to leadership centered on
[28:36] humanity. Thank you so much. Thank you
[28:39] to the our remarkable panelists and
[28:42] thank you all for today. Thank you.
[28:45] Thank you. Thanks. Great.