Tutu Foundation names developmental specialist Janet Jobson as new CEO

The Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation has appointed a new CEO to lead the organization through changing circumstances and to continue the late Archbishop’s bridge building work.

Tutu, the last surviving SA honoree of the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, died in Cape Town in December at the age of 90.

The helm of his foundation will be taken over by Janet Jobson, Mandela Rhodes Fellow at Rhodes University and Rhodes Fellow at Oxford University.

Since completing her master’s thesis at Oxford 13 years ago on the role of youth in global civil society, Jobson has put strong roots at the DG Murray Trust. There she honed her skills on the technical side of development work, rising to vice CEO and serving as acting CEO for a year.

Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation Chairman Niclas Kjellstrom-Matseke said the Board expects Jobson to lead the next stage of the organization’s development.

“The Foundation is well established and administratively sound. It is poised to make real and tangible social impact. At a time of global existential crisis, the Archbishop’s soothing voice of reason and compassion is already sorely missed.

“Janet’s mission is to respond to the human challenges of our time by developing programs and partnerships those of the archbishop’s wisdom, courage and morals,” said Kjellstrom-Matseke.

In addition to Jobson’s scholarship, passion and experience, she grew up fighting for social justice in South Africa. her mother, dr. Marjorie Jobson, is the national director of the Khulumani Support Group, which she has served for more than 20 years.

“What excites us most is where Janet’s lived experience has positioned her at the crossroads of what is often considered gap between the generations is felt. She understands the interdependent obligations of young and old, wealth and poverty, women and men, black and white, Christian, Jewish and Muslim,” said Kjellstrom-Matseke.

“She wants to help build a new kind of society that recognizes the wisdom of harnessing experience and innovation, combining wealth and resources with new and smart thinking to build bridges.”

Jobson said she sees the foundation’s role in to facilitate human conversations.

“So much of what determines the success of our social justice work is ultimately relational. Archbishop Tutu was an extraordinary public figure who had the ability to bring his simple, human way of being and acting to very complex situations. That’s the work I want to do — not what the Foundation thinks about climate change, but what does the deep well of our collective humanity — our human ethics — tell us we should do?” said Jobson.

< She succeeds Piyushi Kotecha who, during her three-year tenure, managed to put the organization on a solid administrative footing and to realize the vision of developing a permanent exhibition in Cape Town honoring the archbishop and the role of the church in the liberation struggle, said the foundation.

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