Sarah Setlaelo

Dr. Sarah Setlaelo is a writer with a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Johannesburg (UJ). She specializes in social, political, moral and comparative philosophy, and her scholarship and research areas are in Africana Philosophy, African Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy, race and gender.

As an academic, she was a lecturer in philosophy at UJ, and has published in the Journal for Philosophy of Culture, Journal of World Philosophies, and Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory. She is also the guest editor of a forthcoming issue of the South African Journal of Philosophy on the works and thought of philosopher, Mabogo Percy More. Additionally, she was invited as a guest speaker at six South African universities (UJ, Fort Hare, Western Cape, KwaZulu Natal, Zululand, UNISA) and two international universities (Georgetown Qatar, Queenstown Canada).

Setlaelo further holds qualifications in Thought Leadership for Africa’s Renewal from the Thabo Mbeki African School of Public and International Affairs, and in African Feminist and Gender Studies from the Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute. Subsequently, she has become a subject matter specialist, consultant and speaker in African and Feminist leadership theory and practice.

Her writing career began in 2007, as a freelance journalist for Real Magazine and Soul Magazine. She also wrote feature articles for True Love Magazine, Destiny Magazine and Blaque Magazine. All these were commercial publications in South Africa.

In 2018 she entered the freelance business writing space, and became a communications specialist in research, copywriting and public relations – across several industries and companies, including advertising, transport, insurance, medical, construction, investment, education, and NGOs/NPOs.

While studying, she ventured into writing thought leadership articles/opinion pieces for Huffington Post, and the City Press, Mail and Guardian and Daily Maverick South African news platforms. One of her pieces was included in the course materials at the Harvard Graduate School of Education by the renowned Howard Gardner, who is known for his theory of multiple intelligences.

In her former role as an entrepreneur, Setlaelo founded an integrated marketing agency in 1999, which she operated for 15 years. Her clients were mainly in the football, music, entertainment, broadcasting and personal development industries.  

During her Harvard University fellowship, she plans to undertake interdisciplinary research, towards a book on political leaders in Africa and the diaspora who have contributed to (philosophical) thought leadership.