Top South African CHROs, CFOs and CIOs were thrown straight into conversations with people they may never otherwise have met at the 2026 Executive Day in September, networking in true Executive Communities style.
Executive Day is the only event on the ExCo calendar that brings together the full C-Suite trio shaping the agenda for the finance, human resources and technology sectors. More than 200 of South Africa’s top-level executives attended this year’s event in Johannesburg – and next year, Executive Day East Africa will make its debut.
Themed Integrated Intelligence, the event kicked off with a speed networking session to break the ice, and open a day of conversation centred around AI adoption, leadership challenges and accelerating change.
During the day’s first panel – Bubbling Blindspots: What’s missing from the conversation on AI adoption? – Thabile Makgala, executive vice president of people, SHE, risk & corporate affairs at Sasol, and Ravi Bhat, AI officer at Microsoft, unpacked the gaps between adopting AI and actually adapting the way organisations work.
“I think one of the things we are not getting right with AI and we will still get there, is that we are treating it as a technology programme instead of recognising it as a fundamental organisational model. We are so consumed with deploying the tool rather than thinking about how we are redesigning the way we work and whether we are actually redesigning the way we work,” said Thabile.
One of the big attention-grabbers was a panel discussion featuring Paul Norman, group CHRO at MTN, and Celiwe Ross, group chief human capital and corporate affairs officer at Old Mutual, who put the CEO role under the executive microscope, unpacking the green and red flags that can make or break the C-suite dynamic.
“For me, a clear sign of a dark cloud around a CEO is one who believes they have all the answers,” said Paul. “The green flag would be the CEO who walks in and can admit that they don’t have all the answers, that there are things that they can work through together, but also one where the intelligence of the organisation, of the Exco, is actually lifted.”
The human impact of organisational change was explored further during a breakaway session featuring El Kope, Cell C CFO; Norbit Williams, general manager: group IT at Eskom and Steven Teasdale, chief people experience officer at Discovery.
The event concluded with an interactive session on how to lead while navigating personal challenges’, featuring Jacques Rikhotso, CEO of Bridgestone, and Jonathan Muthige, CEO: Growth Markets at Alexander Forbes.
Click here to see pictures from the day.