The Athena Leadership Forum Impact highlights growth, mentorship, and women shaping leadership across technology, governance, finance, diplomacy, and innovation.
Last weekend, my colleagues and I attended the fifty anniversary of The Athena, a mentorship and leadership forum created by the Monica Juma Foundation. The milestone marked five years of steady growth with impressive impact, and a testimony of how an idea can grow into a big porposeful community with reach across different fields.
The Athena came to be in 2020 when a small circle of women met to talk about their experiences in work and leadership. Five years later the community now includes more than three thousand professionals drawn from varied sectors like government, private sector, civil society, universities, STEM fields, creative industries, communications, and diplomacy. The growth clearly demonstrates demand for what The Athena offers, and shows that women want mentorship and honest information from fellow women.
Over the five year period The Athena has hosted fifteen events, each excelling as a learning space where mentors and mentees meet and share real examples of every day work. We are looking at workplace instances like data responsibility, internal politics, budget costraints, and how to make sober decisions under pressure.
This year’s meet-up was dubbed The Quantum Quest, and focussed on leadership and technology. The panels hosted an impressive array of women leaders like senior government directors, engineers, bankers, diplomats, founders, and academics. Some of the very engaging conversations leaned towards the widening gap between tech adoption and leadership competence, seeing that many institutions have new tools but leadership teams do not yet have the skills to guide those tools effectively.
Speakers raised precise questions. For instance, Anastasia Kimtai from KCB Kenya asked when leaders will gain the technical skills needed for modern decision making. Her point reflected a challenge many teams face, where sytems grow more intelligent but leadership models do not grow in at the same rate. Dr Shikoh Gitau examined the rise of social engineering attacks and encouraged organisations to build robust cybersecurity mechanisms. Catherine Muraga from the Microsoft Africa Development Centre pointed out that African leaders need to be present in early conversations about global artificial intelligence standards. After all, decisions made elsewhere influence almost all spheres of our lives, including governance.
The day was marked by rich conversations from people in different areas of expertise. For instance, a finance expert described the use and dangers of using automation tools without understanding their long term consequences.
An engineer argued for women to be involved in the earlier stages of product design. A diplomat explained the need for stronger digital policy literacy inside public institutions. Across sessions you could see why The Athena community has become such a strong community with tentacles across many sectors.
The richness of the Athena is shaped by none other than Ambassador Monica Juma whose approach emphasizes on clarity and for women to purposefully support other women who are still rising. This approach has helped The Athena to maintain integrity even amid rapid growth.
Even with this milestone, the initiative is not stopping there. Future plans include expanding regional participation and forming practice groups focused on emerging technologies, cybersecurity and public finance among other areas. These groups will meet throughout the year and share insight with the larger community.
Five years in, The Athena is proof of the kind of impact that a focused forum of people sharing knowledge and making decisions in togetherness can accomplish. The programme now serves as a place where women build networks and support each other through the intricacies of leadership. The fifth anniversary not only marked more growth, but also the fruits of patience, persistence and the right direction.
Here is to more years and impact to come!
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