Regenesys Business World

The view from Sandton

The death of Marcus Jooste by his own hand in March closed the book on many of the questions that needed to be answered about Steinhoff Group, the rise and fall of which he engineered as CEO.

     The lessons in retail behemoth Steinhoff’s spectacular betrayal, covered in the previous edition of Regenesys Business World, boiled down to putting robust measures in place to fend off shady action, because as we see time and again, people in high places can’t always be trusted.

     Every element of business at every level carries some element of risk, from the reliability of postal delivery to financial management, from putting the right people in place and doing the right things, to making strategic calls.

     Openness to risk is cultivated through trust – the confidence that a person or organisation can be depended on to do as they say, as noted by communication theorist James Greunig.

     Trustworthiness is a core element of ethical leadership. Ethical leadership is a core tenet of the King IV requirements for sound corporate governance. A paucity of either eventually leads to disaster, as we see again in this issue’s case study on Credit Suisse.

     Trust co-incidentally turns out to be a thread running through this issue, underpinning the role of sustainability in leadership, building confident, happy teams and successful enterprises, employing influencers to best advantage … and, with a little nudge, your own ability to manage your problems.

    We take great delight in introducing you to several very inspiring characters – Aspen Pharmacare’s audacious Stavros Nicolaou, whose work has changed how drugs are delivered in Africa; adventurers James Pitman and Mike Blyth, who put their unique perspective on risk to good use building their aviation business; and engineer Mhlengi Ncobo, who lost his coffee business to covid, changed tack, and recovered swiftly enough to make it onto last year’s Forbes 30 Under 30 list of entrepreneurs.

     Enjoy!

 

The editor