Human history is a timeline of ideas and innovation – of people choosing to imagine, create, and solve; that enduring human capacity gives me hope for the future.
Dr Sharmla Chetty built Duke Corporate Education’s African operation from the ground up before becoming its global CEO, turning a belief in collective progress into a career in leadership.
Sharmla Chetty grew up in South Africa under apartheid, with an early understanding that systems created by people can also be changed by them.
For nearly two decades, she built a successful career at Nedbank. Then, in 2007, she stepped away from the established path to become the first Managing Director of Duke Corporate Education’s African operation.
There was no mature business waiting for her. She had to build the market, the relationships and the organisation around it.
That role expanded into leadership across Europe, the UK, Asia and Africa before Chetty became Duke CE’s global CEO in 2021. Alongside it, she has created platforms including Women Leading Change, Lead with Her and The AI Club.
Her career has moved across geographies and institutions, but the principle underneath it has remained remarkably consistent: progress happens when people stop treating leadership as an individual act and start building the conditions for others to contribute.
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