Testimony to business growth in the region and a sustained engagement by the Executives Communities team with the spectrum of business leadership in the province, the events were a resounding success.
It’s fair to say that Cape Town is having a moment. The Western Cape is the leading province in terms of job creation, with 86,000 jobs having been created in the past year, and unemployment down in the province by two percentage points to 19.7 percent (compared to a national average of 31.4 percent). Property, tourism, business services, software and IT, and green energy are thriving sectors. Its natural beauty and splendour go without saying.
Executive Communities has been on a mission to get to know the business leaders in the city, and this has resulted in impressive community growth. The turnout at Executive Communities’ most recent summits – on 14 April for CHRO South Africa, 15 April for CIO South Africa, and 16 April for CFO South Africa – were testimony to the hunger that the Cape executives have for this kind of peer engagement.
We've been on a sustained mission to get to know executives down in Cape Town, with a number of dinners culminating in the these three summits. They've given us a warm welcome and it's great to see their appetite for engagement as our efforts have paid off."
The CHRO South Africa Digital Dexterity Summit
At the second CHRO South Africa Summit of 2026, human resources executives were eager to learn what digital acceleration means for their work, amid prevailing fears of over-reliance on AI tools, and anxieties around accountability. They examined AI as a double-edged sword, rethinking the digital workforce strategy, the effect of AI on leadership and who really owns AI in an organisation.
The sought-after event was made possible by Principal Partners Discovery, Lyra, Old Mutual Corporate, and Regenesys Corporate Education; and Executive Partners Jem, Workday and Wyzetalk, and pulled in a host of heavy-hitting HR heroes.
For instance, the panel discussion titled “AI + EQ = The Leadership Formula for the Future of Work” was chaired by Laura James, the director for people and organisation at Mulilo, Sana-Ullah Bray, group executive for human capital at Sanlam, and Rizwana Butler, the group executive for human resources at Capitec Bank.
The breakaway debriefs were led by Herman le Grange, the director for global solutions at Lyra Health, Chantel van der Westhuizen, managing executive at Regenesys Corporate Education, Dalene Sechele, human capital and corporate affairs executive at Old Mutual, and Jacqui Swart, EB marketing manager at Discovery.
The discussion centred around the particular challenges of managing people and managing AI, as attendees grappled with questions around not only when AI could, but also when it should (and should not) be used – and in what ways? Critical thinking and being able to evaluate the ethics of AI, the attendees agreed, was crucial. As Laura said, “We’re not just dealing with people who have knowledge, we’re dealing with people who need to know how to use their judgement, how to learn, and paradoxically that learning is more difficult because it’s AI-supported.”
The CIO Purpose-Driven Tech Summit
Equally fascinating was the discussion that emanated from the CIO Summit, where an impressive array of technology leaders came together to discuss something a little left-field: how purpose, trust and humanity affect decisions in the IT world. The keynote address was delivered by Jennifer Ramnath, an independent executive in technology and digital transformation, who touched on Generation X’s unique perspective in IT as the generation that has lived through a pre-internet era, through all its iterations from dial-up to the cloud, platforms and AI.
Jennifer discussed the responsibility IT leaders have in an economy characterised by high unemployment rates to create digital access and opportunity, and listed the examples of Safaricom and Vodacom’s digital offerings that bring financial inclusion and rural connectivity, respectively, to millions of people.
Sam Nkosi, group CIO at Santam, Mo Kola, CTO at TFG, and Conrad Blignaut, chief executive at iOCO, led the subsequent panel discussion. Eddie Dryden, chief executive for retail at Cassava, Irwhan Rakiep, Metropolitan Life CIO, and Carl Townsend, the development manager at Entelect, led the bustling breakaway sessions.
The Summit boasted the support of principal partners Entelect, Cassava, Deloitte, iOCO, MakwaIT; and executive partners HCLTech, ITR Technology, Equinix, Hyland and Kaspersky.
The CFO Next-Gen Finance Summit
Finally, at the CFO South Africa Cape Town Summit, held under the theme Next-Gen Finance, none other than Paul Harris, co-founder and former CEO of FirstRand Group, and investor in rain, discussed what it takes to build future-ready teams in a world moving at digital speed. Other big-name speakers included Kevin Jacoby, CFO at the City of Cape Town and the 2025 CFO of the Year, and Zaf Mahomed, Oceana Group CFO.
“The best investment we can make is ensuring everyone knows how to use AI. I think this is Africa’s greatest opportunity to leapfrog. Anyone who can read and is curious can, almost instantly, become more capable in law, accounting, or engineering because they now have access to another brain through AI,” Paul said.
The Summit, supported by BDO South Africa, Marsh, STANLIB, and Workday; and associate partner AICPA & CIMA, then moved into breakaway sessions. Equinix SA MD Sandile Dube, Old Mutual Investment Group’s director of investments Hywel George and iLitha Telecoms founder and former SAA CEO Vuyani Jarana debriefed the scenario planning session, which delved into the future of digital finance, data and AI.
Three rooms, three jam-packed Summits, three reminders that being amid the buzz of leaders at the very top of their careers is nothing short of inspirational. The quality of its leadership is just one more string Cape Town can add to its bow of attractions.
“We’ve been on a sustained mission to get to know more executives down in Cape Town, with a number of dinners culminating in these three summits,” says Sungula Nkabinde, head of communities at Executive Communities. “They’ve given us a warm welcome and it's great to see their appetite for engagement as our efforts have paid off.”
If you are a finance, HR or IT executive who would like to attend Executive Communities events, get in touch with head of communities Sungula Nkabinde on [email protected], and if you represent an organisation that would like to support these kinds of events and engage with top executives in South Africa, reach out to head of sales Nick Smith on [email protected].