Professor Lesley Lokko OBE is an academic, novelist, and the founder and chair of the African Futures Institute, headquartered in Accra, Ghana. She is the recipient of the RIBA Royal Gold Medal 2024 and was curator of the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2023. She was included in the 2024 annual TIME100 list of the most influential people in the world. She holds a BSc Arch, M Arch and PhD in Architecture (UCL) and has lectured and published widely. She is a frequent contributor to international juries and awards, including the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (2016 and 2025).