What is the surest path out of poverty?

As it formally launches the Law and Entrepreneurship Program and inaugurates the Program's 2026–2027 theme, Entrepreneurship: Curing Poverty, Catholic Law invites the University community, alumni, and friends to explore that question through a yearlong conversation about how entrepreneurship, markets, and the rule of law advance the dignity of work and the common good.

We open that conversation by welcoming Magatte Wade. A serial entrepreneur and author of The Heart of a Cheetah, Wade has created several successful high-end retail brands inspired by diverse African traditions. She is the founder and CEO of SkinIsSkin, “the lip balm with a mission,” dedicated to creating jobs and prosperity in her home country of Senegal. She has addressed audiences at the United Nations, TED, The Clinton Global Initiative and dozens of top universities around the world. Along the way, she has become one of the world's leading voices on entrepreneurship as a path to human flourishing, with a bold vision to unlock prosperity for 2.5 billion Africans by 2050.

Drawing from her own journey from Senegal to Silicon Valley, Wade will explore why institutions matter, how her faith animates her work, and what role lawyers play in creating societies that promote human flourishing and the common good.