Bell Pottinger, Abey Mokgwatsane, Apex Awards, just some of last week's headlines - 10 Jul 2017

It was an eventful week with Bell Pottinger CEO James Henderson issuing an apology, Abey Mokgwatsane's resignation from Ogilvy & Mather South Africa, the 2017 Apex Awards and the Cape Town sessions of The One Club's One-ID Creative Boot Camp to name just a few of this week's headlines.

UK-based public relations consultancy, Bell Pottinger terminated its contract with Gupta-owned Oakbay Capital three months ago when they were accused of a social media campaign they were involved with highlighting the issue of economic emancipation in an inappropriate and offensive manner. Henderson claims to have been misled, saying that this does not reflect the values of the company and that they are ‘deeply sorry'. The statement has been met with much negative reaction on Twitter, suggesting that an apology is not good enough.

Ogilvy & Mather South Africa announced on Friday that Abey Mokgwatsane has resigned as CEO and will be leaving the company at the end of September to join Vodacom as its new managing executive for brand and communications. Juanita Pienaar is in the process of interviewing Mokgwatsane for our #Newsmaker series, so look out for that over the course of the week.

As far as other new appointments go, today marks Bongani Bingwa's first at 702. He's taking over the afternoon drive from Redi Tlhabi, who completed her final show with the radio station on 30 June.

While last week was Holly Meadows' first as editor of Cosmopolitan South Africa. I interviewed her to find out what it means to have already achieved her dream at such a young age. “Thrilled, motivated, humbled and ready”, she's excited to take the magazine into its next phase. With her experience on the brand and as a Millennial herself, Meadows knows what the Cosmo reader wants, and that is an editor who applies her mind to create and innovate at a dynamic pace.

I also touched base with Kgaugelo Maphai, who joined The MediaShop's new Johannesburg office as MD, to find out what he's getting up to in his first 100 days and the challenges that lie ahead.

As for events, last week The One Club hosted its third One-ID Creative Boot Camp in Cape Town, followed by Johannesburg this week. It's an international traveling diversity workforce programme that partners with agencies and brands to expose and develop the future talent pool of advertising and design creatives, giving them the opportunity to develop their skills in the space. For more on what it entails, go to oneclub.org and look out for my coverage of the Awards next week.

Last but not least, the 2017 Apex Awards took place on Thursday at the Sandton Convention Centre, where the only gold Apex was awarded to DDB SA for Telkom's 'Somebody set me free' campaign in the ‘Change' category, which also dished out the most metal, awarding five silvers and three bronze awards, compared to the other two categories (‘Launch' and ‘Sustain') only yielding a lonely silver and three bronze, reported Danette Breitenbach, who also interviewed a number of speakers at the Apex masterclass earlier that day. Watch our video interviews here and follow #Apex2017 for more of her coverage over the course of the week.

Don't forget to book for our Case Studies from Cannes sessions in Johannesburg on 19 and 20 July and in Cape Town on 26 July with our roving reporter, Ann Nurock who will be accompanied by three South African jury chairs to discuss the post-Cannes Lions 2017 highlights via case studies and commentary of this year's award-winning campaigns and trends.

Also listen in to BizTakeouts with Hein Kaiser tomorrow at 7:15pm on MixFM 93.8 when I'll be sharing some of the week's top stories and for an on-air interview with owner and event director Simon Robinson about all that's new and on offer for the industry at Mediatech Africa this month.

Here's to another eventful week!