For three days, South Africa’s top finance, HR and IT leaders took a full day out of their calendars to network and learn at the Marriott, at three back-to-back mega events.
Blocking out a full day in the diary of a busy person is always going to be a big ask. The occasion for which South Africa’s top executives are sacrificing such a chunk of time has to deliver significant ROI. Executive Communities consistently receives the feedback that the “Days” (CFO Day, CHRO Day, and CIO Day) are an opportunity for business leaders to savour the power of connection, experience inestimable peer learning, and engage with the most relevant topics in the finance, HR and IT spaces – and that investing the time in those experiences is priceless.
In the constant tussle between the urgent and the important, it is possible to get stuck ticking off the tasks that are flashing the most intrusively on one’s to-do list. But the ability to step back for strategic, big-picture thinking, to focus on the important questions, is what characterises an executive with superior insight.
CIOs examine their own agility
CIOs understand speed arguably better than any other executive on the board. And with the pace of technological change showing no sign of being near the top of the curve, CIOs sit at the intersection of speed and stability – expected to move fast without breaking things, to innovate without losing control, and to adapt without losing direction. If that sounds like gymnastics, it’s no surprise that the theme of CIO South Africa Day on 12 May was “The Agility Imperative”.
Agility is a strategic imperative for every organisation that intends to remain relevant, competitive, and resilient. During the CIOs’ discussions, it emerged they thought the CIO/CFO partnership has a joint responsibility for how fast – and how safely – the organisation can move. But, they cautioned, it’s not a partnership merely about getting budgets approved: it’s about rewiring how the organisation thinks, decides, and delivers results in the context of the Fifth Industrial Revolution. Agile teams, CIOs emphasised, need to be empowered so that CIOs can take financial decisions and implement them without needless bureaucracy.
It was a day to hear from peers and engage in the honest, unscripted conversations that dedicated, curated listening time together makes possible.
CFOs tackle “Valuenomics”
On 14 May in Johannesburg, the best minds among the city’s CFOs gathered for a day themed “Valuenomics”, with robust discussions on growth, efficiency, digital transformation and sustainable value creation in an increasingly complex economy. A highlight was the fireside chat with Eskom Group CFO Calib Cassim, who shared his invaluable personal experience of being at the finance helm as the country recently celebrated a loadshedding-free year. Who would know more about resilience, transformation, and the changing role of finance leaders in navigating economic uncertainty while driving long-term value creation?
The CFO role has never been static, but the pace of change right now feels even faster, the demands ever higher. How to avoid the so-called “efficiency trap” was the next topic that occupied the minds of this group of high-level finance executives. They asked themselves: In the pursuit of optimisation, are we protecting the business or limiting its ability to grow? It was a conversation about trade-offs and priorities, constant motion, and tough judgement calls.
CHRO South Africa
“The Leadership Paradox” was on the agenda as Johannesburg’s top HR leaders gathered for CHRO Day. HR executives shared that they needed strong systems, structures, and architecture in order to perform an excellent HR function, in addition to leadership development that focuses on things such as empathy and psychological safety.
On top of that, the leaders discussed the need for a longer view of an organisation as an entity that will exist beyond individuals’ career spans with the organisation. The HR mavens also grasped the nettle of AI, discussing whether good candidates for jobs are potentially weeded out by prejudiced artificial intelligence models.
In breakaway sessions, the CHROs discussed what happens when business survival clashes with company values, and how difficult retention is in an environment where budgets are constrained but performance expectations are high.
“Speed dating, but for work”
With all the talk about “speed” at the three events, a unique concept was trialled at the CHRO and CFO Days: Attendees sat face-to-face for seven-minute networking conversations designed to help them connect, share ideas, and talk honestly about challenges. And then they switched, making new connections, learning about each other, and sharing their own insights and challenges.
The biggest ROI was how quickly the participants wanted to take the idea back to their own workplaces.
“The connections we made are exactly what we needed and I’m going to steal it with pride,” one HR executive shared, while another felt that, “in a relatively short space of time, the exercise created energy, trust, and a genuine sense of connection”.
Three Days, three different concepts, hundreds of executives with broadened knowledge and bigger networks.
To ensure you are on the invite list for any upcoming events, get in touch with Executive Communities head of communities Sungula Nkabinde, on [email protected].