Bellagio Residents/

Colin Coleman

November 2022 Cohort

Bellagio Residency: November 2022

Project: “Chasing Mandela’s Dream”


Colin Coleman is a businessman and academic. Coleman came to Bellagio in November 2022 to work on the book “Chasing Mandela’s Dream”, a nonfiction novel based on his life. He was a former partner and Chief Executive Officer, Sub Saharan Africa, at Goldman Sachs up until his retirement in 2019. In the 1980s, Coleman was an anti-apartheid activist, and from 1989 deeply involved in South Africa’s constitutional transition from apartheid to democracy. He served in working groups of the multi-party talks, facilitated the International Mediation Forum and helped to negotiate the agreement to facilitate all parties’ participation in South Africa’s 1994 elections.