Speakers

Andre Fourie

Fury Strategic
Founder

Speaker Biography

Andre Fourie has helped brands navigate the complexities of modern reputation management for the past 15 years, working with industry leaders across the ICT, retail, leisure, mining, financial services, hospitality, and public sectors. He is the founder of South Africa's first on-demand strategic consulting firm, Fury Strategic, providing strategic communications and reputation management services to companies across Africa, Europe, and Australia.

Anna Botha

Coach

Speaker Biography

Anna Botha, a track and field coach at the University of the Free State, is the coach of Olympic Champion and World Record Holder, Wayde van Niekerk. Botha began working with Van Niekerk in 2013 after he had enrolled as a marketing major at the University of the Free State. After discovering his potential, Botha and Van Niekerk had big dreams to win the 400-meter sprint at the 2016 Olympics since 2013. Under her tutelage, Wayde van Niekerk has become the first sprinter to run the 400-meter sprint in under 44 seconds, the 200-meter sprint in under 20 seconds and the 100-meter sprint in under 10 seconds!

Anthony Kairuz

International Inspirational Speaker

Speaker Biography

Anthony is a bright entrepreneur, internationally recognised speaker and will also be releasing his first and much anticipated book.

At the age of 20, his life and future changed in an instant. Anthony broke his neck in a motorbike accident, leaving him paralysed from the neck down. Anthony's innate fire, faith, family love and dynamic spirit allowed him to move beyond his 'limitations'. From going on to achieve his B.Com Logistics Management degree with 4 distinctions to finding sustainable ways to cover his medical expenses.

Anthony, through his life experiences and “no excuse” approach, stands uniquely qualified to equip people with “tools”, to get “one step closer” to their goals in life. These tools, sets whomever learns from him, “apart from the pack”

Anton van Metzinger

FNB Business Banking
Head: Digital Platforms

Speaker Biography

Anton recently returned to the FirstRand Group beginning of 2016, having previously been Sector Director – Financial Institutions within RMB Coverage.

The combination of international strategy consulting with Monitor Group (now Monitor Deloitte) with entrepreneurial leadership in software services as well as the on-demand / location-based economy over a two-decade career, has resulted in a set of multi-disciplinary skills typically deployed in the strategy, business development and business change contexts – often with a strong technology-creative imperative.

Chose Choeu

Eskom
Divisional Executive: Corporate Affairs

Speaker Biography

Chose Choeu, in his dedicated and extensive career, has served in world-class corporations and Fortune 500 companies. He has led highly skilled and specialist teams in numerous fields, ranging from academic, ICT, parliamentary and government relations, to energy, public affairs, media and investor relations, risk management, corporate governance, and legal and regulatory activities. 

Since June 2010 Chose Choeu has been the Divisional Executive of Corporate Affairs at Eskom where his expertise has guided the organisation’s realignment and repositioning processes, emanating from the challenges facing Eskom and other institutions in recent years.

Gordon Smith

Alpha Real Capital Iberica
Managing Director

Speaker Biography

Gordon is principal of Alpha Real Capital Iberica and is based in Madrid. He has over 20 years' experience in the real estate and finance industries across Europe, the UK and India. As part of his role as joint fund manager for Alpha's opportunistic fund, Gordon is responsible for deal sourcing, financing and delivery of shopping centre turnaround strategies in Spain and Portugal. Alpha Real Capital is a co-investing asset manager. Headquartered in London, Alpha has offices in the UK, Europe and Asia with in excess of £1.4 billion of assets under management. Alpha's fund portfolio ranges from core long-income to opportunistic value-add investments that are spread across diverse real estate and asset backed sectors. Alpha's team has extensive experience, over various investment cycles, in shopping centre investment across Europe.

Herculano Rodrigues

Javelin Group, part of Accenture Strategy
Associate Director

Speaker Biography

Herculano Rodrigues is an Associate Director in the Locations & Analytics practice at Javelin Group, which is part of Accenture Strategy. He has more than 12 years of experience in retail strategy and consumer insight, working with leading international retailers and landlords to develop commercial insights to inform finance, marketing and strategic planning. Herculano is passionate about strategic innovation and technology driving the future of retail, and is helping clients deploy practical applications to help to unlock value and transform businesses. Over the past few years, he has led board-level engagements to embed customer insight and analytics to drive value from the merging of the physical and digital retail environments. Herculano is the chairman of the ICSC European Next Gen committee, vice-chairman of the ICSC Innovation committee, and is a frequent speaker at industry events.

Howard Saunders

22and5
Retail Futurist

Speaker Biography

Howard has been shaping retail for more than 30 years. A former Creative Director of the international design agency Fitch, for over a decade he has focused his skills on helping clients understand and prepare for the fast changing retail landscape. Since 2012 he has been based in both London and New York, advising international clients including CBRE, Johnson & Johnson, eBay Enterprise, L’Occitane Beauty Products, Magento, Oracle, Permira, Telstra and Westfield. As a Retail Futurist, Howard writes regularly for the international retail press and speaks at conferences across the globe. His talks are lively, jargon-free, visual journeys that predict the fast-changing world of retail and what it means for our cities, high streets and most importantly, our communities. He is known for being provocative, challenging, brutally honest, evidence-based, as well as thoroughly entertaining.

Janez Vermeiren

Television Presenter

Speaker Biography

Janez Vermeiren is a South African model, property trader, entrepreneur and television presenter best known for starting out as a handyman on the SABC3 magazine show Top Billing, before progressing to fulltime presenter.

Janez pursued studies in interior design, graduating in 2000. At the end of 2000, he was offered a modelling job. The first job he was booked for was a worldwide Fanta ad and since then he has shot over 100 local and international brands, as well as having worked for hundreds of international catalogue and advertising clients. In 2001 Janez won Cape Town's beach competition Mr/Mrs Clifton and in 2003 he entered and won the Men's Health Look of the year award. As Storm's top male model for five consecutive seasons, he was well prepared to move on to start his own model agency Full Circle Model Management which he did in 2007.

Jeremy Gardiner

Investec Asset Management

Speaker Biography

Jeremy is a regular voice in the media, at conferences and to the investment-related world at large, responsible for commenting on current affairs, economics and investment markets. In his position, Jeremy is inundated with information from the world’s top analysts, on everything from politics to petrol. Jeremy’s challenge is consolidating all this information and bringing it to you in an understandable format that you will find interesting and informative. Jeremy has been with the firm for 25 years, during which the business grew from a small Cape Town Asset Management firm, to a significant global business managing clients assets in excess of R1.6 trillion.

Kevin Welman

ByDesign Communications
Director

Speaker Biography

Kevin is a Founder and Director of ByDesign Communications. Kevin has over twenty years’ experience in corporate communication strategy, media strategy, social media strategy, crisis counselling.

Kevin led a leading multinational PR agency for 9 years, during his tenure as MD the agency was awarded as PRISA’s Best Large-Sized Agency of the Year for two years in a row (2014 & 2015); Best Pan-African Agency, African Excellence Awards (2016); Most Innovative Agency EMEA SABRE Awards (2016) and won PRISA’s Best Pan African Campaign (2015 & 2016).

Kevin’s client experience includes General Electric, DaimlerChrysler, FirstRand including FNB, LG Electronics, Microsoft and Barclays Africa to name a few.

Lunga Shabalala

Model, Actor & TV Presenter

Speaker Biography

Lunga Shabalala is a South African model, television presenter and actor best known for taking over as the host of the SABC1 music show Selimathunzi from Kaos Matu after winning a countrywide presenter search, in 2011. His journey began when he won the Represent South Africa in Calvin Klein competition in August 2010 and became the face of the men's underwear range, garnering him media attention. He quickly found a place for himself on the "desirable" men's list such as 2011 Cosmo Sexiest Hunks Calendar and several others.

Lunga was a commentator on the second season of the Vuzu countdown show 10 Over 10 in 2013, and was the co-host (with Amanda Du-Pont) of SABC1's New Year countdown show Come Duze, which aired on 31 December, 2013. In 2014 he made his acting debut in the SABC1 police drama series Task Force and starred in the SABC3 reality series The Man Cave with Janez Vermeiren.

Marnus Broodryk

Entrepreneur

Speaker Biography

Marnus Broodryk is a South African entrepreneur best known as one of the “Sharks” - a group of investors who offer ordinary South Africans investment in their businesses in the M-Net reality show, Shark Tank South Africa. At the age of 14, Marnus started his first business - designing websites. By the time he turned 24, he was a self-made millionaire and entrepreneur having launched several companies, including The Beancounter - an accounting firm of which he is CEO.

Nigella Lawson

British Food Writer and TV Cook

Speaker Biography

Internationally renowned food writer and TV cook, Nigella Lawson was born in London, England, and published her first cookbook, HOW TO EAT: The Pleasures and Principles of Good Food in 1998 while still a highly successful journalist. Known for her easy and accessible approach to food, she has since published ten bestselling books with over five million sales in the UK alone and over 10 million worldwide. Nigella has made several hit TV series, which have aired across the globe, including reality cooking competition, The Taste’ (2013-2014). In 2013 she appeared as guest judge on ‘Masterchef Australia’ and returned in 2016 to the delight of viewers. In 2015, Nigella’s latest TV series, ‘Simply Nigella’ aired on the BBC and has been syndicated globally. The series was accompanied by a cookbook of the same name which instantly became a bestseller.

Nitesh Patel

Standard Bank Group
Head: Group Real Estate Services, Retail

Speaker Biography

Nitesh Patel has 21 years of retail banking experience.  He has fulfilled a wide range of roles within the Retail Bank across various spheres of the business such as finance, branch banking, data management, home loans, customer strategy and now within Group Real Estate Services.  He was previously the Head of Finance for customer channels and the Head of Branch Banking in Gauteng province responsible for over 150 points of representation.

In his current role he is responsible for the full spectrum of real estate services for retail banking.  This includes full accountability for placement, leasing, design & build, maintenance and geospatial insights.

Paul Greenberg

NORA
Founder and Executive Director

Speaker Biography

Paul Greenberg is the founder and Executive Director of NORA.org.au, a peak non-profit retail industry body. Prior to that, Paul was the founder of DealsDirect.com.au, a pioneer online retailer in Australia. Paul himself is widely considered to be an online retail pioneer in Australia. Paul topped the 2016 Demandware Top 30 Retail Influencer list in 2016. He currently holds a portfolio of directorships and advisory roles. He is a registered psychologist with a desirous interest in organisational psychology, as well as a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Ran Neu-Ner

The Creative Counsel
Joint CEO

Speaker Biography

Ran Neu-Ner founded The Creative Counsel, a below-the-line activations company, with school friend Gil Oved in 2001. Today The Creative Counsel is South Africa’s leading activations agency with an annual turnover of R500 million. In 2015, Ran concluded the biggest business transaction in South Africa where he sold The Creative Counsel to a French-owned international business, The Publicis Group, for just over R2 billion. He continues in his role of Co-CEO at The Creative Counsel Group, to steer and mentor his team to live by the philosophy - “Brilliance or Nothing” He has become a serial entrepreneur. His passion is to assist up and coming businesses, whilst growing and developing entrepreneurs. This is evident in his involvement with an incubation project which he started - The Branson Mentorship Programme - and his recent pledge of R50 million to assist young entrepreneurs. When he is not behind a desk, you will find him travelling the world, looking for the next best innovation and trying to make that better to bring it back to South Africa.

Raymond Van Niekerk

Speaker Biography

Raymond van Niekerk runs his own businesses. These include sponsorship management, brand consulting, guest speaking, lecturing and strategy intervention. Previously, the global head of marketing for Investec, he still contributes to Investec’s marketing efforts as a consultant and has a branding, design, marketing and sales background. Raymond spent 16 years with Investec. Prior to joining Investec, he was a founding partner and a Director at Sw!tch Branding & Design, with offices in Johannesburg, Cape Town and London. Before starting Sw!tch, Raymond was the Director of Consulting at the KSDP Design Group (at the time, the 10th biggest design consultancy in the world), where he was involved in both international and local branding and design projects. Apart from being a professional soldier for four years, Raymond has also worked in marketing and sales for BP and has travelled extensively.

Reha Ersin Cakir

Defacto
International Retail Director

Speaker Biography

Reha Ersin Cakir set up the International and Wholesale Department at DeFacto. He created an infrastructure of Franchise sales channel for the company to satisfy the international demand as a new sales channel. Reha opened 50 stores in 2017 in 9 countries and signed a total of 150 stores contract. He created a market of 250 stores potential with a 5 Year Business Plan. 2018 Year target is 80 stores in 18 countries.

Rod Salmon

Barclays Capital
Consumer and Retail Analyst | Equity Research

Speaker Biography

Rod has been involved with the retail industry his whole career. Rod started his career in the McCarthy Group in South Africa before moving to the UK and working for Argos, now part of Sainsburys, heading up business acquisitions and diversification. Rod moved across to the financial markets in London covering the retail sector in the UK and Europe as an analyst for Charterhouse and then Kleinwort Benson. After 13 years in the UK Rod moved back to South Africa with Cazenove as Head of Equities. Cazenove, which is now part of JP Morgan was involved in the listing of Anglo American and SAB in London and also Rod was involved in the planning and unbundling of the Wooltru group (Massmart, Woolworths and Truworths). Rod joined Merrill Lunch as was rated #1 financial analyst in South Africa for the retail sectors by the Financial Mail and #1 in emerging markets by both Reuters and Extel. Rod has also advised Massmart and Pick n Pay on strategy and operation effectiveness. In addition to this Rod was involved in an online startup in the UK and US which was sold to EBay. Rod currently works with Absa Capital as a Retail/Consumer Specialist.

Sean Gallinger

Entertainment Retail Enterprises
President

Speaker Biography

Sean has been active in the hard and soft goods manufacturing industry for 20+ years, with experience spanning all aspects of the business - from product development, sales, marketing, sourcing and distribution, to retail store implementation and territory expansion. While experienced in overall brand development, his greatest strength lies in building distribution channels for global brands; crafting a vision and plan customised to every situation. Cat, Nickelodeon and M&Ms are all brands that have benefited from his confident, proven knowledge and expertise in this area. Sean takes a look at the broader possibilities and implements strategies that lead to unparalleled success, growth and further opportunities.

Tony da Fonseca

OBC Chicken
Managing Director

Speaker Biography

Tony has built the OBC Group into the fastest-growing player in its sector, with over 50 stores trading profitably. Most of the OBC Chicken stores are franchised and store count will increase to 80+ by the year 2020.

Tony is passionate about franchising and keen to give back to the industry. He joined FASA’s Board of Directors in 2012 and currently serves as its chairman.

Under Tony’s leadership, an independent panel of judges named the OBC Group FASA Franchisor of the Year in 2015 and 2016. During the same period, the South African Portuguese Chamber of Commerce named OBC Large Business of the Year twice.

Trevor Hardy

The Future Laboratory
CEO

Speaker Biography

Trevor is responsible for the growth of the business – diversifying products and services, expanding the countries in which The Future Laboratory operate and creating new partnerships. He is creative, entrepreneurial with a strong commercial focus. His career spans management consulting and advertising agencies in Canada, the US and the UK, working with organisations including Coca-Cola, Budweiser, Ernst & Young, Comic Relief, E&J Gallo, BMW, Microsoft and Nike.

Wayde Van Niekerk

Olympic Gold Medalist

Speaker Biography

Wayde van Niekerk made his international debut at the 2010 World Junior Championships in Athletics. His senior breakthrough came at the age of 18 at the 2011 South African Athletics Championships, where he won the 200-meter race. The 2013 season marked Van Niekerk’s emergence as a 400-meter runner. He won the second national title of his career in the 400-meter race at the 2013 South African Championships. Van Niekerk won the gold medal in the 400 meters at the 2016 Summer Olympics with a world record time of 43.03 seconds, breaking Michael Johnson’s long-standing record from 1999. Van Niekerk became the only man to have won the Olympic- or world 400 meters from lane eight. Usually, runners in this lane are at a disadvantage due to the staggered start.