Thursday 1 November marked the first ever event organised by CFO South Africa. At the offices of DLA Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr in Cape Town we welcomed over 80 finance professionals from companies such as Nedbank, Accenture, Jasco, Transparent, Nebula, Alexander Forbes, Ernst & Young, Allan Gray, Zando, Kumba Iron Ore, KPMG, PwC, Sanlam, Olam International, Soitec, Old Mutual and IBM.
The first part of the event featured an exclusive round table discussion seating the CFOs from Spur Group, Fly Mango Airlines, Umgeni Water, Kumba Iron Ore, Shanduka, Olam International, Jasco, Servest Multi Service Group, Randgold & Exploration, Wesgro, Neotel and the Ministry of Finance of the Western Cape Government. They discussed current challenges and opportunities facing the modern CFO in South Africa in and exchanged ideas and visions.
Roundtable attendees from left to right: Steven Whiley, Inge Abraham, David Ngobeni, Nica Gevers, Mariette Ebersohn, Melle Eijckelhoff, Ronel van Dijk, Ian Blackie, Warren Prinsloo, Van Zyl Botha, Alan Winde, Ryno Matthee, Peter Walsh, Bikash Prasad, Gasant Orrie and Frikkie Kotzee.
The discussion took place in the boardroom of DLA Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, which overlooks the city, and so served as a symbolic reflection of all construction outside. "One just has to look outside to see how rapidly South Africa is developing and growing," one of the participating CFOs pointed out. CFOs have to keep up with all this growth - bundling their thoughts, visions and forces is something they all agreed was very valuable.
After the round table discussion a group of over 80 finance professionals joined the event and took the opportunity to meet and greet their peers and expand their professional network.
Although the event, which had drinks and snacks provided, was formally scheduled to end at 8PM, the last person to left the venue 9PM. The drinks and snacks provided by DLA's wonderful catering was definitely an influencing factor.
We at CFO South Africa are delighted with such a great turn out and all the overwhelmingly positive responses we received. Make sure to block Tuesday 12 March, for the next CFO Café, this time taking place in Johannesburg.
View the photos from the event here.
Please feel free to email us personally on [email protected].
