“I honestly believe that by working in partnerships that harness our various strengths and resources, we can create an enabling environment for small business development and therefore job creation.”
– Khanyisile Kweyama, executive director of Anglo American in South Africa.
Gallagher Estate in Johannesburg was abuzz with expectation on Monday, 27 October 2014, as entrepreneurs, big business, and enterprise development specialists, consultants and beneficiaries, rubbed shoulders at the fifth annual Enterprise Development Conference.
Day 1 was full of insightful discussions showcasing best practise in enterprise development, interwoven with interactive networking opportunities and some impressive on-the-ground success stories.
Hlonela Lupuwana, managing director of our enterprise development initiative, Zimele opened the conference, “When Anglo American first partnered with the Enterprise Development Conference back in 2010, our objective was to showcase best practice in enterprise development and to assist in raising standards in this sector. The success of the conference in subsequent years has proven the value and relevance of such an approach, particularly in today’s socio-economic climate, as it presents an opportunity to review our progress as an industry and thus ensure continuous improvement.”
Next up was a robust panel discussion on making public private partnerships work, a theme that continuously cropped up throughout the day’s discussions. One of the panellists was our strategy and new business development manager of Zimele, Dr Lia Vangelatos, who gave her insights into what makes for effective partnerships, saying that it’s essential to have public private partnerships that have common goals, “by working together towards a common objective, we can do good business and do good, at the same time”.
This discussion set the tone for Mmadiboka Chokoe, executive manager of Supplier Development at Transnet, who spoke on creating sustainable enterprises, using Transnet’s Enterprise and Supplier Development model as a key example. With a focus on youth unemployment (South Africa has the third highest youth unemployment rate in the world) Chokoe spoke of Transnet’s alignment with government’s economic development policies in combatting unemployment through enterprise development.
Dr Mike Herrington, director of the UCT Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the UCT Graduate School of Business, unpacked the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Report – the most informative and authoritative study on entrepreneurship in the world today. This helped to benchmark South Africa’s entrepreneurship potential on a global scale. Dr Herrington concluded with a quote by Maria Pinelli from Ernst & Young: “The need to act is clear. Entrepreneurs have the power to create jobs and drive growth – but first we need to give them the tools and the environment that will enable them to succeed”.
Next up were two exciting panel discussions; one that featured the success stories of influential local entrepreneurs, and another that discussed the importance of women and transformation within entrepreneurship.
After lunch, Paul Pleva, U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Regional economist for Southern Africa, welcomed the delegates back with a session focused on increasing return on investment. Pleva said, “The potential upside to improving policy, regulations and local institutions is immense”.
Next, Dov Girnun, Founder of Merchant Capital and a true entrepreneur at heart, shared his entrepreneurial experiences, inspiring the room by telling his story of how his risk-taking led to impressive rewards.
After a quick tea-break the market linkages session provided an engaging platform for networking through “entrepreneurial speed-dating”, designed to get people connecting, linking the right people with the right projects. Delegates had 90 seconds in which they had to introduce their company to the person opposite them and to find out as much about the other persons business in that short time after which they then exchanged business cards. In the 60 minutes delegates had the opportunity to meet more than 20 new business contacts in that session.
Thereafter, delegates could then choose between three difference master-classes to attend – small sessions that encouraged one-on-one interaction and practical learning.
Delegates returned to the main conference hall for the final speakers in high spirits. Ravi Naidoo, Founder of Interactive Africa and creator of Design Indaba, enthralling his audience with his stories of innovation on his unique entrepreneurial journey.
Khanyisile Kweyama, our executive director, aptly brought the first day to a close with her final remarks on developing sustainable businesses that contribute to long-term job creation in South Africa as well as a summary of some of the key highlights shared by the day’s speakers . “We want our country to be prosperous and we want every South African to have an opportunity to share in this prosperity. Throughout today, we have seen that as corporate companies, we have a real opportunity to underpin government’s efforts to achieve this.”
Overall, yesterday’s chapter of the 2014 Enterprise Development Conference was an insightful one and today’s promises to live up to the momentum. Follow our social channels on Facebook, Twitter and our blog for more updates from the final day.