PHOTO BY LAURA PETRILLA

Keratiloe Sishoma Mogotsi
Assistant Professor and Associate Dean, School of Business and Enterprise, Chatham University

As a child, Keratiloe Sishoma Mogotsi envisioned herself as a badge-wielding FBI agent ready to change the world — so a calling to education came as a (welcome) surprise.

Yet at age 30, after working in the corporate world in Johannesburg, the native of Zimbabwe began questioning life on a “conveyer belt,” and knew she wanted off to find deeper meaning. She enjoys working with people, and cherishes her role seeing students through to graduation.

“I feel like a farmer,” she says. “I’m planting seeds.” She adds, “You start seeing your fingerprints all over their work.”

In 2023, Chatham University brought her to Pittsburgh, where she felt warmly received. Among other passions, Mogotsi leads the social action project at the Pennsylvania Center for Women & Politics that each summer brings together powerful women from various colleges aspiring to be policymakers and leaders.

During the last lecture of each semester she teaches, Mogotsi says, “I hope that I’ve kindled your soul.”