The first day of the Talent Agenda Series Southern Africa Conference was a great success
The day began well with a warm welcoming speech from Stephen Tio Kauma, the Human Resources Director of Afreximbank. This was followed by an inspirational keynote address from Silas Zima the South African Presidential Adviser on Energy. The keynote address was fascinating with a strong focus on the importance of human capital. Silas Zima stressed the necessity of your company’s workforce as people are such a vital asset.
The first panel discussion of the day was titled Southern Africa: Unlocking regional opportunities for people, organisations and industries. Our testimonials have shown that this panel is extremely relevant for anyone working in Human Relations in Southern Africa. It caused interesting discussions within the panel discussion itself, in the panels Q&A session and in the following networking break. We followed this panel up with a private interview with the speakers. Please, remember that this interview will be available only to the members of our new community. So, If you would like to become a member of our exclusive community please sign up.
Our partners Willis Towers Watson's gave a presentation this morning, on Industry Insights: Attracting, engaging and retaining talent: Sustainable employee engagement as a tool to improving business performance. They lent their expert advice to the room and inspired an interesting debate. Their desk by the entrance also proved to be a great source of information and attracted the attention of our delegates.
“Organisation must take responsibility for their employees when they make a career change, to make this change a positive one” This is a quote from our panel this afternoon titled: Tapping into growth opportunities, challenges and strategies for consumer products. The panel focused on the modern norm of multiple careers and changing careers without having to take a significant step back down the career ladder.
The day ended with multiple champagne round table discussions, the theme of these discussions where talent management, leadership development and GCC search recruitment strategies. This was followed by a cocktail reception, that was a great networking platform. During the reception Education Africa, a charity supported by the Talent Agenda Series, gave an energetic marimba performance. If you would like to learn more or donate to this wonderful cause please follow this link: http://bit.ly/1BDkant
Our feedback so far has been really positive with the audience primarily expressing their happiness with the range and variety of topics and speakers while still maintain the conferences regional focus. We are all looking forward to the final day of the conference which begins tomorrow morning with registration opening at 7:30.