Professor Youssef Mahmoud was appointed as Visiting Professor at the African Leadership Centre in 2015. He is a leading practitioner on the Centre's Practice of Leadership programme.

He is Senior Adviser at the International Peace Institute (IPI), supporting the sustainable development and peace operation programmes and serving as focal point on mediation and prevention policies and practices.

Youssef is a former UN Under-Secretary-General and has headed peace operations in Burundi, the Central African Republic and Chad. Prior to these assignments, he held other senior United Nations positions, notably as UN Resident Coordinator in Guyana, Director in the UN Department of Political Affairs, and Head of the Office of the Undersecretary-Secretary-General for Political Affairs.

In 2015, he served as member of the UN Secretary-General High Level Panel on Peace Operations (HIPPO) and simultaneously as a member of the High-Level Advisory Group for the Global Study on Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security.

In 2019, Youssef led an independent strategic review of the UN peace operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO), pursuant to UN Security Council resolution 2463.