The Think!Fest programme at the National Arts Festival offers festinos an opportunity to engage in thought-provoking and critical conversations around a variety of professional or personal areas of interest. The Rhodes Investec Business School will be presenting a series of lectures at Think!Fest under the school’s motto Leadership for Sustainability.
On 1 July there will be three speakers: Dale Hefer will speak on ‘Sustainable Marketing’, Keith Coats on ‘Sustainable Leadership’ and 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 Mervyn King on ‘Sustainable Organisations’. Simon Gear of Primedia Broadcasting will then chair a panel discussion on ‘Sustainability: Evolution or Revolution?’
The sessions will all take place in the Monument Restaurant and will each be one hour long.
Dale Hefer
Hefer is the founder of the Chillibush Group of Companies, which she started in a garage as a one-woman show in 1998 and today employs a team of more than 40 people with projected earnings of R70 – R80m.
Hefer was the Gauteng Business Woman of the year in 2008 and in 2009 a finalist in the Top Women in Business and Government Awards. The Chillibush Group of Companies comprises of a range of interests, including advertising and design, investor relations, public relations and events.
Hefer embodies the spirit of entrepreneurship in South Africa and has seen a meteoric growth in her company in just over 10 years through good marketing practices. She is the author of the bestselling marketing book entitled ‘From Witblits to Vuvuzelas: Marketing in the New South Africa’.
Hefer’s session on “Sustainable Marketing” will be at 10:00.
Keith Coats
Coats has been at the heart of the global conversation on leadership for over 15 years in an array of settings, from academic and corporate to NGO and government. He is a highly regarded presenter and has consulted, presented and taught in countries all over the world, including China, the United States and Russia.
Coats’s skills lie in his ability to find appropriate frameworks and processes for individuals and companies to think strategically and explore leadership. He is the co-founder of Tomorrow Today and Director of Storytelling.
Coats is passionate about the international role and voice that South Africa can have in leading diversity and has frequently been asked to share the “South African Story” internationally. He has worked with both leaders and their executive teams in numerous international blue chip companies, advising on how to lead teams through organisational change and facilitating mergers and other strategic processes.
Author of “Everything I know about leadership I learnt from the kids”, Coats has also published articles on leadership in a variety of local and international publications and journals. He serves on the International Advisory Board of the Global Leaders Conference. He has been involved with the Asia Pacific Leadership Program in Hawaii for seven years and was the keynote speaker at the Swedish Economic Forum last year, where he spoke on global trends impacting business and leadership.
Coats’ session on “Sustainable Leadership” will be at 12:00.
老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 Mervyn King
Rounding off the illustrious group of speakers is the renowned 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 King, who needs little introduction. A former 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 of the Supreme Court of South Africa, he is also a founding member of the Arbitration Foundation of Southern Africa. He was the South African judge at the ICC International Court of Arbitration in Paris for eight years.
Recognised internationally as an expert on corporate governance and sustainability, 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 King has consulted, advised and spoken on legal, business, advertising, sustainability and corporate governance issues in 43 countries and has received many awards.
He appears regularly on radio and television talk shows, ran his own television series, ‘King on Governance’. He wrote a book ‘The Corporate Citizen’ and recently co-authored ‘Transient Caretakers: How to make life on Earth sustainable’ with Teodorina Lessidrenska.
老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 King has chaired and been a director of several companies listed on the JSE and is probably best known as the Chairman of the King Committee on Corporate Governance in South Africa. The King Report, issued in 1994, was regarded as being ahead of its time in adopting an integrated and inclusive approach to the business life of companies, embracing stakeholders other than shareholders.
The King II Report, issued in March 2002, has been acclaimed and used internationally. He also serves as President of the Advertising Standards Authority, First Vice-President of the Institute of Directors Southern Africa, Chairman of the Appeal Committee of the United Cricket Board, of the AA (Automobile Association and of Strate, the settlement arm of trades in equities and other instruments in South Africa, and is a member of the Securities Regulation Panel, which oversees all mergers and acquisitions in the country.
On the international front, he serves among other things as Chairman of the Global Reporting Initiative in Amsterdam and Chairman of the United Nations Committee on Governance and Oversight.
King’s contribution goes well beyond his involvement in business. He served as chairman of Operation Hunger for eight years and is now the organisation’s Honorary Life President. As chairman of AA Life, he was party to starting the Vita Arts Awards and also chaired the Johannesburg Youth Theatre Trust.
An ardent supporter of cricket, he created and chaired the South African Executive Cricket Club, raising R1-million a year for ten years for the development of cricket. He also contributed significantly to the unification and restructuring of cricket, athletics and tennis in South Africa.
Visitors to the National Arts Festival will have the opportunity to hear him speak on “Sustainable Organisations” on 1 July at 14:00.?
Pic: Dale Hefer.