Lesley Lokko is the Founder and Director of the African Futures Institute (AFI) in Accra, Ghana, an independent postgraduate school of architecture and public events platform.

She was the Founder and Director of the Graduate School of Architecture, University of Johannesburg in South Africa (2014-19) and Dean of Architecture at The Bernard & Anne Spitzer School of Architecture (2019-20), City College of New York (CCNY), USA.

She is the editor of White Papers, Black Marks: Race, Culture, Architecture (University of Minnesota Press, 2000) and the editor-in-chief of FOLIO: Journal of Contemporary African Architecture, published by the AFI.

In 2004, she made the successful transition from academic to novelist with the publication of her first novel, Sundowners, (Orion, 2004) and has since followed with twelve further bestsellers translated into fifteen languages. Her thirteenth novel, The Lonely Hour, is forthcoming in 2024 from Pan Macmillan.

Lesley Lokko is currently a founding member of the Council on Urban Initiatives, co-founded by LSE Cities, UN Habitat and UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose; a Visiting Professor at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, and Visiting Professor at University College Dublin. She is a trustee of the London-based Architecture Foundation, an Advisory Board member of New Architecture Writers, and has held visiting professorships at the University of Westminster, University of Cape Town, The Cooper Union, and the University of Virginia.

Lesley Lokko was recognized in the first New Year Honors list announced by King Charles III in 2023 and was awarded Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her services to architecture and education.

She is Curator of the 18th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, The Laboratory of the Future.

Lesley Lokko was Chair of the Holcim Awards 2023 jury for Middle East Africa.