There’s nary a celeb in sight and the event is attended mostly by men in penguin suits. Yet the Sunday Times Top 100 Companies Awards is one of those rare shindigs I look forward to attending every year.
It is to a professional mingler and conversation magpie what the Amazon and the Great Barrier Reef are to David Attenborough — a golden ticket to observe and rub shoulders with the country’s most influential.
After all, where else can you meet a chicken farmer who is one of the longest serving CEOs of a JSE-listed company, talk neckware with the head of one of Africa’s largest banks and shoot the breeze with the country’s top tax collector and one of our most prominent anti-apartheid activists?
Heading into the fourth floor reception room at the Empire Conference and Events venue at the Hill on Empire building in Parktown, Joburg, I spot Reuel Khoza, last year’s recipient of the Lifetime Achiever Award, with his wife Mumsy. Also there is banking titan Jacko Maree (himself a recipient of the renowned acknowledgement in 2020) who is accompanied by his wife, Sandy, and Prof Mervyn King (1987 business leader of the year recipient) with his wife Elizabeth.
Bowties and lapel badges are the topics of conversation when I greet another banking heavyweight, Sim Tshabalala, who was last year’s business leader of the year for his contribution as the well-respected head of the Standard Bank Group.
Last year Sim opted for a brown bowtie, but this time around it’s the distinctive pattern of our national flag. Now, it would be remiss of me not to bring up the recent announcement by the blue bank that Sim retires from his position at the end of 2027. The astute data-driven banker points out that succession has always been part of the plan and, with both him and CFO Arno Daehnke retiring, a new generation will take the bank into the future.
Someone else who will be hanging up his hat come April is Sars commissioner Edward Kieswetter.
While I muse about whether the tax boss was counting down the days, Cheryl Carolus has a more topical question. “Was that you congratulating the Vrouteas on social media?” asks the activist who was attending as chair of women-owned and -led investment company Peotona.
Edward, wearing a shirt that would have made Madiba proud, nods his head, adding: “I’m a supporter of all our national sporting teams.”
I did say there was not much fashion to talk about, but Cheryl’s shimmering cocktail dress is worth a mention on what was a bittersweet occasion for the former ANC deputy secretary-general and one-time high commissioner to the UK. This was the first time she accepted an invitation to a black tie event since the passing of her husband, struggle stalwart Graeme Bloch.
Next, I meet a cheerful oom who started out in the poultry game back in 1984 when he was hired to looking after 6,000 chickens in a shed with only one assistant.
By the time Chris Schutte retired from Astral Foods at the end of January, the country’s largest chicken producer had 43-million chickens and 13,500 employees.
I asked Chris, who was accompanied by his wife Reinette Schutte and their daughter Zillah Schutte-Nel, what came first — the chicken or the egg? “The chicken of course,” said the man who led the JSE-listed company for 16 years.
We all head into the ballroom, where I am seated next to newly appointed Business Day editor Luke Feltham and his analyst wife Reneiloe.
When the proceedings start, I am relieved to see us welcomed not by a comedian (as was the unfortunate choice last year) but by broadcaster Gugulethu Mfuphi who, having interviewed many a captain of industry, is better versed on the ebbs and flows of the business world.
Onto those speeches — and Sunday Times editor Makhudu Sefara opened his address by thanking the formidable audience present for their “leadership — not just in the institutions that you lead, but in all of society” while Deloitte Africa CEO Ruwayda Redfearn reminds us about the many successes our country has achieved over the year.
However, when Jonas Bogoshi, the CEO of BCX (which has been a steadfast headline sponsor of the awards, and which uses the platform to hand out its own Digital Innovation Awards) takes to the stage his tone is more sombre, pointing out how, in an increasingly polarised world, sustainability is losing support.
Jonas proposes that rather than taking sides, we should recognise that we are “part of a vast fibre of energy and matter”.
“If we talk about my nation and your nation — all this is a construct. When you harm the ecosystem, you harm yourself and everybody.”
The theme of sustainability is also addressed by the night’s keynote speaker, Nigerian entrepreneur Dr Ndidi Nnoli-Edozien, who represents Africa on the IFRS Foundation’s International Sustainability Standards Board.
Onto the winners, and Chris, the chicken king from the Karoo, was announced as this year’s recipient of the lifetime achiever award, while Eskom CEO Dan Marokane was named the business leader of the year.
Dipula Properties took poll position for providing its shareholders with the highest returns over a five-year period.
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