Leadership Team

 

Kelly Alcock is a sustainable development practitioner and enterprise development specialist with more than 10 years of experience spanning renewable energy, development finance, environmental sustainability, social justice and human rights, with an overarching focus on inclusive economic development.

She currently serves as Head of Education & Sustainability at WESSA, where she provides strategic leadership across a national portfolio of environmental education, youth development, sustainable livelihoods and sustainability programmes. Her work focuses on building partnerships and programmes that connect environmental action with education, skills development, employment, enterprise and community-level impact.

Kelly holds a Master’s degree in Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits Business School). Her research explored Women Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development in the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Programme in South Africa, reflecting her longstanding interest in the intersection between renewable energy investment, enterprise development and inclusive participation.

In 2023, Kelly was awarded the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders, joining a cohort of 700 Fellows from across the African continent. Under the Civic Engagement track, her focus centred on the acceleration of EdTech solutions in Africa. Through the Fellowship, she completed an intensive leadership programme at Florida Gulf Coast University in the United States and participated in the Mandela Washington Fellowship Summit in Washington, D.C.

In 2022, she was awarded a First Generation Scholarship to the University of Amsterdam, where she participated in the Power to the People: Social Movements, Activism and Grassroots Organising programme.

Kelly was also selected as the South African participant in the Women in Wind Global Leadership Program 2020–2021, an initiative of the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) focused on advancing women’s leadership and professional development within the global wind energy sector.

Across her career, Kelly has worked at the intersection of sustainability, economic development and social impact, with a particular interest in creating pathways that enable young people, women and communities to participate meaningfully in the opportunities emerging from South Africa’s environmental and economic transition.