Katlego Kai Kolanyane-Kesupile

Katlego Kai Kolanyane-Kesupile is a groundbreaking Trans* ARTivist and cultural architect from Botswana.

She is a seasoned communications specialist, strategist and solution-based thinker with a background in performing arts, education and human rights.

An international scholar, she holds an MA in Human Rights, Culture and Social Justice from Goldsmiths University of London (UK, 2017), a BA Honours Degree in Dramatic Arts from University of the Witwatersrand (SA, 2010), and has participated in leadership development training at Drexel University (USA, 2018) as a recipient of the Mandela Washington Fellowship. Katlego is a member of the Global Shapers Community – a World Economic Forum initiative.

Her speaking appearances include 2016 World Economic Forum on Africa, 2018 Yale University Africa Salon, 2016 & 2018 Performing the World Conference, 2017 TEDx Goodenough College and panel appearances at the United Nations.

She is a multilingual, globally experienced development practitioner with a keen eye for purpose driven, sustainable and innovative solutions to world matters – with a concerted focus on developing inclusion and education outlets to motivate dignified living for LGBT+ persons in Botswana and around the world.

A classically trained singer, director and designer, her work spans performance and production.

Botswana’s only TED Fellow, she is the Artistic Director and Founder of the Queer Shorts Showcase Festival. Bahati Books (UK) published her poetry collection…on about the same old things in 2016 and it premiered at Writivism Festival in Kampala, Uganda.

Her accolades include being an OkayAfrica #100Women honouree, Queen’s Young Leader, Chevening Scholar, and a Best of Botswana Performing Artist. Her hobbies are getting ‘strategically lost’ while travelling, cooking for friends, and learning new languages.

Katlego Kai Kolanyane-Kesupile

Katlego has long aspired to serve as UN Secretary General and to open an academy celebrating holistic excellence for young people. She is a 2019 UN Religion Fellow with OutRight Action International.

CORPORATE

• Communications
• Identity management
• Presentation coaching (ExCo/ManCo elocution)
• Corporate culture (strategy)
• Holistic Inclusion and Diversity (disability, gender, sexuality, race, religion, age)
• Human Rights informed practice
• Facilitation and Conflict Resolution

Katlego K Kolanyane-Kesupile has travelled the world crusading as an ARTivist and development practitioner - operating with corporates, educational institutions and producing stimulating creative work. Having started in performing arts and sports at a young age, discipline and resilience have served as guiding principles on Katlego's professional journey.

It is no wonder that she has not only held audience with heads of state, mediated refugee outreach, and consulted on organisational management, but she has also managed lifestyle brands, profiled music legends, and delivered numerous motivational speeches.

​

Katlego Kolanyane-Kesupile was honoured as one of the 100 Most Influential Women of African Descent by OkayAfrica on their 2018 #100Women list.

Katlego uses storytelling for change - drawing from skills instilled in her through theatre training and working as a media practitioner, and fortifying her practice with humanist and compassion-fuelled approaches to problem solving.

Inclusion and appreciation of diversity as mechanisms for holistic growth and change drive her technical approach.

She is as comfortable educating in a boardroom as much as in a studio, or under a tree. An infectiously bright personality, Katlego is adept at generating thought provoking conversation and building inclusive spaces for communal learning.

​

Never one to shy away from provocation, her presentations, panel appearances, conference curation, articles, podcast and creative work highlight the personal, the professional and the political regarding her positioning as a vocal advocate for human rights and equality for LGBT+ people globally as Botswana's first openly trans-identifying public figure.