The Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS), University of Pretoria, has opened applications for the 2026 Executive Programme in Media Leadership (EPML), introducing a significantly expanded generative AI component to address the accelerating pace of change in African newsrooms.

The programme, now in its second year, is developed and led by Michael Markovitz, Director of the Media Leadership Think Tank at GIBS, and Styli Charalambous, co-founder and CEO of Daily Maverick. It is designed to strengthen leadership capacity across Africa's media sector at a moment of revenue model disruption, platform dependency, and rapid technological change.

"Our focus is on creating a structured space for media leaders to step back from day-to-day pressures and think strategically about the future of their organisations," said Markovitz. "Across the continent, leaders are navigating profound disruption, often without the time or support to engage these challenges at the level required."

The four-month programme runs as a 14-day hybrid experience across four blocks, combining in-person sessions at GIBS with online engagement and coaching. It is aimed at senior practitioners across the media and communications landscape: editors, newsroom leaders, product and technology heads, media executives, and decision-makers in policy, finance, and operations.

The 2026 curriculum retains its focus on sustainability and business model innovation, leadership and organisational transformation, digital disruption, and strategic influence. New for 2026 is a substantially expanded, hands-on Generative AI component covering prompt and context engineering, tool analysis, and applied use cases tailored to newsroom and media environments.

The multidisciplinary faculty combines GIBS academics in leadership, strategy, and entrepreneurship with senior media practitioners, investors, technologists, and policy experts from across Africa and globally - each bringing direct experience of building, managing, and transforming media organisations.

The inaugural 2025 cohort drew senior leaders from across Africa's media, public, and multilateral sectors, including the African Union, the National Treasury of South Africa, Daily Maverick, eNCA, the SABC, TechCabal, and the Association of Independent Publishers. Each participant delivered a capstone project applying programme learnings to challenges within their own organisations, with some already yielding outstanding results.

"Participants are not only engaging with new ideas, but actively applying them," said Charalambous. "The strength of the programme lies in its combination of rigorous thinking, practical tools, and a network of peers facing similar challenges across different markets."

One 2025 participant described the experience as "a well-needed and nuanced space to think deeply and learn about new ways to lead resilient, high-quality media organisations on the continent." Another reflected on the practical outcomes: "I learned so many new and useful things that we have been implementing. Our business is already growing faster due to some of these ideas."

The programme places a strong emphasis on building social capital across the African media ecosystem, creating space for leaders to collaborate, exchange insights, and develop collective responses to shared challenges.

The Executive Programme in Media Leadership is supported by the Google News Initiative, which is partnering with GIBS to strengthen the next generation of media leaders in Africa.