UCT GSB partners with WEF to bring YGL to the Mother City

The UCT Graduate School of Business (UCT GSB) is partnering with the World Economic Forum (WEF) to host the Young Global Leaders (YGL) Africa Education Module from 18-21 November in Cape Town for the first time. The WEF runs education modules for the YGL community and alumni groups alongside leading universities across the world.

The YGL Africa Education module, sponsored by Deloitte and the Liberty Group, is titled “Effective Leadership for a Future Africa” and will bring together YGLs and alumni who seek to make a personal and professional impact, not just in Africa, but beyond. Dr Martyn Davies, Managing Director of Emerging Markets & Africa at Deloitte, who spearheaded this initiative and is a YGL alumnus himself, said Cape Town was an obvious choice as it is at the intersection of both the first and developing worlds.

The workshop will explore themes of sustainability, social impact, innovation, enhancing team success and ethical leadership. “Through the module, YGLs will gain deeper insight into how we - through our individual and collective efforts - can strive to drive an inclusive agenda in the often challenging environments in which we live,” Davies said.

Alongside an excursion to Robben Island, YGLs will be given a tour of the UCT GSB’s historic campus as well as being treated to talks by UCT GSB Adjunct Professor, Dr Francois Bonnici, on building social innovation into business models in Africa, and UCT GSB senior lecturer, Dr Tim London who will be speaking on effective and ethical leadership in rapidly evolving organisations.

On Tuesday the YGLs will visit the UCT GSB’s Philippi hub in the community of Philippi, which was established in a deliberate effort to deepen the UCT GSB’s relevance as an African business school and enable it to develop more socially relevant solutions to the challenges of the South African context. Sarah-Anne Alman, Solution Space Manager at GSB-Philippi will be speaking to the YGLs on the topic of "Transforming lives through Purpose-People-Process-Places: Solution Space Showcase of African Startups".

YGL is an independent non-profit organisation launched by the WEF in 2004. The YGL community assembles the world’s most outstanding next-generation leaders who have a proven record of extraordinary achievement, and helps them further develop in their leadership journey. YGLs are nominated by alumni to serve six-year terms and must be younger than 38 years old at the time of acceptance, as well as being highly accomplished in their field, whether in politics, business, academia or media.

Kosheek Sewchurran, Acting Director of the UCT GSB, said that the school was looking forward to hosting the cohort of young global leaders. “Africa is a young continent, and in a very real way it is the emerging generation who will be the ones to drive the inclusive development and strengthen democratic governance that we need to grow and prosper. As a business school we are already committed to supporting and enabling future leaders and our partnership with the WEF’s Young Global Leaders initiative is a natural extension of this and a long-term investment in the future.”

Previous YGLs include the likes of CNN’s Anderson Cooper, NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Adern, Alibaba founder Jack Ma, and celebrities such as Leonardo di Caprio, Ashton Kutcher and Charlize Theron. Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, created the Forum of Young Global Leaders in 2004 as a way to help the world meet increasingly complex and interdependent challenges. His vision was to create a multi-stakeholder community of the world’s next-generation leaders to help inform and influence decision-making through the contribution of new ideas, perspectives and energy.