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Before Corona. After Corona.
Worlds apart. Leveraging a Survive/Revive/Thrive mindset, Ian tackles what it takes to be a successful business and leader in the AC environment.
Ian focuses on the fundamental shifts we must all make in our ways of trading, ways of leading and ways of thinking to not just survive but leverage the ultimate disruptor event for the benefit of your company and your career.
This talk is rooted in deep operational experience of leading 3 businesses and 1 school through the 2020/21 events – here Ian really speaks from the heart, with every lesson having been learnt the hard way.
PEGI Rating – 18+…
Remember Nokia? Recall Kodak? Want to be the next Blockbuster or Toys R Us? Ian strikes through to the heart of what business and personal relevance is and shows how losing that relevance can be terminal.
All is not lost though.
In this keynote, Ian Russell will lay out a clear 5 point plan that any business can quickly grasp and execute upon, that will create a step-change in their ongoing relevance to their customers
Objects in the Rear-View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Really Are Business’ obsession with what has happened in the past, and with what their competitors are doing, is fundamentally damaging their chance of success in the future and limiting what they can achieve.
In this keynote, Ian powerfully argues that businesses must change the way they lay out their strategies, re-platform the way they measure success and re-magine what their business can be, if they are to release a new growth path and finally look forward through the windscreen towards the horizon.
Perhaps Ian’s most famous keynote, Fuzzy Logic dispels the myth once and for all that organisations take decisions rationally and logically.
Ian Russell highlights clearly the key reasons why organisations do not take decisions rationally, and the consequences of these failings.
Concluding the keynote, Ian creates a 5 point roadmap that any organisation or individual can employ to reduce the levels of ‘fuzzy logic’ around decisions, and a route forward to create long term success.
Ian Russell is currently an independent, freelance business advisor, speaker and professional non-executive director. Ian’s most recent corporate role was as CEO of BCX, Africa’s largest technology company, with a turnover of $2bn and a workforce of 10,000. Having been there, done that, Ian retired from mainstream corporate life and wrote the bestselling business book: The Other […]
Ian Russell is currently an independent, freelance business advisor, speaker and professional non-executive director. Ian’s most recent corporate role was as CEO of BCX, Africa’s largest technology company, with a turnover of $2bn and a workforce of 10,000.
Having been there, done that, Ian retired from mainstream corporate life and wrote the bestselling business book: The Other End of the Telescope.
During 2019, Ian addressed well over 10,000 people in Europe, Asia, and Africa on topics from the book, such as “Fuzzy Logic”, “Organisational Cholesterol: Silent Killer”, “The Past is a Foreign Country: they do things differently there” and” Fighting Fire with Fire: the Untold Fintech Story”.
Ian has shared the stage with the likes of Dion Chang, Malcolm Gladwell, will.I.am, Richard Mulholland, Rapelang Rabana, John Sanei, Mark Sham, Scott Synder, and Bronwyn Williams and revels in the multi-faceted aspects of on-stage, live debate.
Ian also works as an independent business advisor and coach to Boards and CEOs looking for support and guidance on turning around business performance, and especially focused on how established businesses can use their assets to fight off digitally native disruptors.
Ian Russell was CEO of BCX, South Africa’s largest technology company, with a turnover of $2bn, and an employee base of 10,000. Russell’s tenure saw a focused re-engineering of the company, simplifying the core of the business, creating new technology capabilities, and a massive shift of the brand towards innovation and disruption.
Prior to this, Ian Russell was at Telkom, part of the ExCo and at the heart of the turnaround. He was accountable for every aspect of cost across the Telkom business. Procurement, supply chain, property and people costs were all tackled systemically and with great effect. The resurgence of the Telkom business was predicated on the transformation of the cost base during this time.
Before Telkom, Ian Russell was at SABMiller and led the migration of the procurement activity from being an in-country South African operation, to a global one based in Switzerland.
Russell spent eight years at Barclays, working across operations, procurement and technology. These included roles running the Barclays African back-office, creating and leading the world’s first ‘smartsourcing’ approach to cost re-engineering, and ending up as Barclays’ Global CIO, a role which led him to Absa.
Ian Russell was also one of the initial architects of the acquisition of Absa by Barclays in 2005, and emigrated to South Africa to help oversee and manage the post merger integration. During his time at Absa, Ian focused mainly on re-engineering the cost base, and led the highly innovative ‘One Absa’ programme.
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Kobus Wiese was born on May 16th 1964 in Paarl, matriculating at Paarl Gimnasium. He went on to study further at Paarl Onderwys, and obtained his teaching diploma from Goudstad. He has played rugby for Boland, Western Transvaal and Transvaal (now Gauteng), touring as a Springbok to Australia in 1993, New Zealand, Wales, Scotland and […]
Femi Adebanji is a sought-after international customer service speaker and organisational excellence speaker focusing on Leadership, Change, and Motivation. A passion for helping organisations transform their service excellence levels, build truly customer centric cultures, create high-performance business cultures and evolve into brands of distinction. With over 15 years of business leadership and customer strategy experience, […]
Professor Shirley Zinn is the former Group Head of Human Resources at Woolworths Holdings Limited. Prior to this, she was the Head of Human Resources of Standard Bank South Africa and Deputy Global Head of Human Resources for the Standard Bank Group. Prior to this she was the Group Executive HR at Nedbank. Before this, […]
Mongezi Mtati has spent the past six years playing and working on the web. He founded his company WordStart in order to help companies generate buzz around their products and services amongst South African influencers. During the company’s first year, Mtati had the opportunity to present the WordStart business model and MC at Richard Branson’s […]
Nambitha Mpumlwana wears many hats – businesswoman, humanitarian, philanthropist, charity patron and many more. She is an inspirational, dynamic woman whose talent has touched many people. Apart from her stardom and entrepreneurship, Nambitha Mpumlwana is an inspirational, dynamic, deeply spiritual and down-to-earth individual. Nambitha’s TV career Award-winning Yizo-Yizo I & II; Interrogation Room I & […]
Phumzile Chifunyise is the Founder of The Crop Box and CEO of GreenNatives Pty Ltd, a Skills, Enterprise and Supplier Development agency aimed at designing and implementing disruptive, impactful strategies that provide small businesses with access to expertise, growth opportunities, and markets across industries. The purpose of Green Natives is to advance the presence and […]
Colin Iles has 20 years of experience working for some of the top global consultancies and financial institutions in London, Frankfurt, Singapore and most recently South Africa. Throughout his career Colin has focused on designing and implementing solutions that bring positive benefits to the communities and stakeholders the organisations serve. His specific focus in his own words…“Most […]
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