2025 Executive Day brought together top CFOs, CIOs and HR leaders under the theme Renewing our social contracts. The event tackled South Africa’s future, digital transformation, ethical leadership, menopause in the boardroom and the realities of executive loneliness.
Executive Day 2025, held at The Venue Melrose Arch in Johannesburg on 3 September proved to be the right place for the top financial experts in South Africa as well as their C-suite IT and HR colleagues, to engage in eventful and innovative conversations and group activities.
The day kicked off with breakaway sessions that looked at the future of South Africa in 2035. The discussions explored how to redesign society, reimagining business and facilitating foresight. During the exercise C-suite executives shared visions for the future of education, healthcare and government.
This was followed by a session with Tiger Brands CEO Tjaart Kruger and Executive Communities MD Joel Roerig where they reflected on the signs of the times.
‘If you put labels on generations you are profiling different generations. There is no difference, but in a bigger picture, they are all the same. I have come across 25-year-olds who are just like me. I have seen great young people, but if you start debates about work-life balance and work, you will find young people who love working hard and are results driven,” Tjaart said.
Next up to take the stage was Dolores Mashishi, the V20 advocate and MD at DSM advisory. She was joined by Professor Bonang Mohale, a business thought leader. They spoke about a reflective call to action on the future of corporate leadership and responsibility.
All about ethics
Professor Bonang said transformation is not a luxury, but an ethic. He expressed that people who are ethical leaders in government don’t steal from people and added that South Africa’s constitution is the best in the world.
“Lets agree that instead of reading the 12 pages, we need to speak about it being a job description,”
“Businesses continue to do well and they need to accept that we can't be an island of prosperity while being surrounded by a sea of poverty. Our gaze should be locked and look at how we can be productive and competitive as a country,” said Professor Bonang.
Next was a panel discussion with Mike Davis, the group CFO of Nedbank, about the cross-functional digital transformation between CFOs and CIOs.
Mike explained that digital transformation is imperative for new financial services. He stressed that without it, the organisation risks a “Kodak moment,” especially as banks increasingly adopt similar offerings.
“So I think that’s an important issue that’s worth targeting, particularly for a financial institution. In terms of my invention of agile evolution, the way that we put this together, is first and foremost, we did a lot of research overseas. We visited a number of banks and we thought that was the best,” he said.
“The best thing we came up against, they came up with, we followed a replicated system approach. We called it a best of group approach. We identified pieces of technology that we could effectively rip out and replace. We identified pieces of technology we could retain and effectively refactor. And we called that the best of the group,” he added.
Advice from elite c-suite
Arno Daehnke, Standard Bank’s group CVFO, highlighted the importance of collaboration at executive level. He noted that as Africa’s largest financial institution, with 30,000 employees across 21 countries, the challenge lies in aligning technology with strategy.
For Standard Bank, he said, value is driven through four pillars: client-centricity, risk and compliance, operational excellence enabled by technology, and people. These, he explained, ultimately deliver both strong financial outcomes and a positive impact on society and the economies in which the bank operates
“How do you make sure that the technology aspects come together? How do you put this together in the context of your character? So, what's the visibility of these strategic value drivers? How do we generate value across their goals? And on that, I saw the clients being so central to everything we do,” he said.
“Ready-made extensions, which is obviously managed in a way. Then, operational excellence, which is enabled by technology. So, those are the value drivers,” he said.
Next up was Dr Natalia Novikova, a gynaecologist and endoscopic surgeon and Dr Claudelle von Eck, a non-executive director, spoke about how menopause impacts board and management efficacy.
In the last breakaway of the day, attendees gathered for a panel discussion on how executives are feeling about loneliness in leadership positions.
EY global controlling transformation leader Ajith Haripaul spoke about reimagining leadership challenges and support networks. He explained that the way loneliness comes in is when a CFO wants to advance a certain agenda and it doesn’t align with everyone else, and secondly when they have to come up with a decision that impacts everyone and one has to stand by it.
“You are either the decision-maker or the group and you might not be the popular one or you could influence a lot of people to try and advance the company, but you have to stay true,” he said.
The day was made possible by principal partners Cassava Technologies, Entelect, Huawei, iOCO, MakwaIT, Marsh, Old Mutual South Africa, and Regenesys Education, executive partners Anchor Capital, BDO South Africa, Coupa, Discovery Limited, Equinix, FranklinCovey, HCLTech, LRMG, STANLIB, and Workday, and associate partner GIBS.
