Thabo Lenneiye

Staff

Managing Director of the Sustainable Agriculture Fund

Thabo Lenneiye is the Managing Director of the Sustainable Agriculture Fund at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy in the Weitzman School of Design. In this capacity, she is responsible for operationalizing the fund, launching initiatives focused on sustainable agriculture strategies and practices, and framing a research agenda that intersects with energy and climate policy.

Prior to this role, Lenneiye was the Managing Director of PennPraxis, where she oversaw operations, fundraising, business development, communications, and strategic planning for the organization. She spent 12 years before this at Gensler, where she held various design, project management, and leadership roles. Notably, she worked alongside the firm’s leadership team to shape initiatives promoting justice, inclusion, and social impact, including the conceptualization and strategic planning of a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) studio in 2020.

Lenneiye’s commitment to societal impact extends beyond her professional roles. She served as the inaugural secretary of the Board for the African Union Pan-African Diaspora Women’s Association from 2017 to 2018. She also played a crucial role in establishing Gensler’s Africa practice, working directly for CEO Diane Hoskins, and serving as support staff for the Obama Administration’s Presidential Advisory Committee for Doing Business in Africa.

An entrepreneur at heart, Lenneiye has founded a number of social ventures. Her multi-disciplinary background includes co-teaching design studios at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Maryland. She is an Associate Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Global Health, and holds an MBA from the University of Cambridge, where she was the recipient of the Africa Regional Scholarship.