breakers

What's up, bros?! We're glad you can all be here for beer and roughhousing! Ya know, just boy stuff! Lets make friends with a toy cowboy, knock Santa off the roof, and then transform into a dog! Ya know, guy stuff! Now lets trick Tim Allen out of his entire net worth in a series of increasing side bets over a game of pool! Ya know, just some boy stuff!

Zach knows a lot about Christmas with the Kranks, Jared truly wants to scam Tim Allen, Adam is convinced they need to perform a Globetrotters level stunt.

Talking Points Include: Light Energy, Dance Flowers, Grunt Bets, Doing The Columbo, The Last Real Man, A Live Grunt Experience, Roughhousing With The Boys, Grunt Contest

Louise van Rhijn's organisations Symphonia for South Africa and Partners for Possibility focus on working with school principles and business executives, by placing them in partnership relationships to lift the general level of management in schools. She challenges both sides to “cross the boundary” - to move out of their comfort zones and work in a closer partnership to create the education future our children deserve.

Louise is also at the forefront of dealing with the additional challenges that the Covid-19 crisis is bringing to schools and communities. We salute her as a true Covid-19 Hero.

As most of the world tuned into Love is blind via Netflix series, I watched and started to ask so many questions. So what better way to get answers to questions from a show many cant stop talking about then to have a good girls chat. This episode is based on questions I thought about from watching the series. I asked some close friends to stop by and give their thoughts and laughs to make the conversation interactive and fun for listeners. My friends and I discussed dating questions, concerns, choices, preferences and desires. I asked and they answered with their real opinions, its a true love laugh girl talk conversation. Tune in and enjoy Part 2!

As most of the world tuned into Love is blind via Netflix series, I watched and started to ask so many questions. So what better way to get answers to questions from a show many cant stop talking about then to have a good girls chat. This episode is based on questions I thought about from watching the series. I asked some close friends to stop by and give their thoughts and laughs to make the conversation interactive and fun for listeners. My friends and I discussed dating questions, concerns, choices, preferences and desires. I asked and they answered with their real opinions, its a true love laugh girl talk conversation. Tune in and enjoy Part 1!

If a deal seems too good to be true, maybe it is. But how do you know when a deal promises more than it will deliver? Heather Marchant and I lay down our hard and fast real estate rules, and also talk about some amazing deals that we passed on because they broke those rules.

Matt Brown is the definitive “restless soul". He has travelled and lived across the world, and while doing this, started not less than 10 businesses by the time he hit 40. In 2015 he “fell into podcasting”, at that stage an unknown medium in mainstream circles. Fast forward to 2020, Matt has become a household name to many, with more than 200 episodes and 1m downloads of his podcast, "The Matt Brown Show." This also led to a bestselling book, "Your Inner Game", where Matt unpacks the key lessons and patterns he observed through the many conversations he had with exceptional individuals.

South Africa’s education system is broken. We know this from the graduation statistics that surface year after year. But we also know this from the unemployment rate - and specifically youth unemployment rate of more than 50% at the end of 2018. Not only is our economy in trouble, but our youth also seems unemployable after finishing school with no hope of further tertiary studies.

John Chambers, previous CEO of CISKO once famously said: " The two great equalizers in the world are education and the internet." And combined, in the shape of what is commonly referred to as Eductech, we could have a major impact on the trajectory of our current generation. But why is this not happening?

I sit down with Kirsty Chadwick, CEO & Founder of The Training Room Online (TTRO) to discuss how edtech and a few small tweaks to our approach to providing education, could completely change the legacy of a seemingly broken education system.

She is a passionate trail-blazing teacher turned entrepreneur who has set her sight on “changing the world” through providing educate solutions in South Africa...and now also the Middle East

Vusi Thembekwayo is at the top of his game as a sought after speaker on leadership & entrepreneurship topics. I caught up with him in Johannesburg, where his other business, My Growth Fund, is based and about to launch a great business training initiative into townships.

Vusi is a master of clear and thought-provoking thinking. He is starting to play a significant role as an opinion former to many young, and increasingly cynical South Africans who are looking for guidance in life, and in business. He is no stranger to controversy, and the reason he articulates so well when he says: "Facts don’t care about feelings"

In this conversation, he challenges "white thinking" and "black thinking" alike. He just generally challenges our societies' thining (or the lack thereof). But he does it in such a very constructive way, and I do believe if we can emulate his approach to such matters, we can progress our collective narrative to a point where we can really address the various biases in all spheres of society at its root.
Please enjoy my though-provoking and inspiring conversation?

This podcast answers the question, "What is eMobility, its impact on the grid, and the opportunities it presents for utilities?" This podcast features Sal Gill, Global Business Development Manager, ABB Power Consulting.

This podcast introduces the building blocks - transformers, generators, circuit breakers, and measuring devices - that make up the crux of the power grid. These equipment staples are kind of like the navy blue blazers and khaki slacks of the modern grid: functional, reliable, and ubiquitous. This podcast features Craig Stiegemeier, Expert Services Product Manager, Transformers, ABB.

Gil Oved is the co-founder of the creative council, an iconic business that he co-created over the scope of the last 18 years from only an idea and recently sold to Publicis, the well known French Multi-National.

Gil is probably publicly best known for his role as one of the sharks in the hit TV series, Shark Tank. He will be starting 2019 in his new venture LLH Capital - a Permanent Capital Vehicle in which he partnered with well known and seasoned ICT executive, Romeo Khumalo.

We discuss topics covering fatherhood (04:00), building and preparing a business (33:00) with an exit in mind, his investment philosophy (48:00) in general, but more specifically in technology (1:16), the legacy he wants to leave (1:41), the advice he will give to young entrepreneurs (1:29) and very importantly how he has stayed ahead of the pack in a very demanding industry over the past 18 years.

Gil has recently been listed as one of the ten people to watch closely in technology in South Africa

I am finishing this first season of Shapers, Makers, Builders & Breakers with a conversation with an extraordinary young man, Taps Mugadza. His life story reads like a movie script. Abandoned on steps of an orphanage when he was just 2 days old, he lived through a trying childhood where the little stability he had was taken from him a number of times. Over his formation years, he discovered he had an extraordinary musical gift and through a chance meeting with someone who saw his potential, he found himself on a plane to the USA, destined for great things as a recording artist. Taps Mugadza is a worthy role-model in Africa. Please join me in my conversation with this extraordinary man & musician.

This was the first episode of the podcast series aired in February 2019. Being the first episode in the series, I do believe that it did not receive enough attention and is worthy of a re-release. It was filled with tremendous life lessons and learning. Themba remains one of the most inspiring young business leaders in Africa and South Africa today.

Themba Baloyi is a textbook example of what determination can overcome in the face of every kind of adversity - a challenging family structure, money shortages for education, various business rejections - none of which could hold back the rise of this young business leader to eventually found Discovery Insure. His vision grew from just an idea to a business unit receiving more than R4B of insurance premiums - and this recently culminated in him being honoured with the All-Africa Business Leaders Award as 2018 Entrepreneur of the Year.  

He is in my mind thé role-model for any young ambitious South African wanting to go places, but seemingly have a shortage of resources to get there. His story is all-inspiring and very relevant necessary to be told.

Today is woman’s day in South Africa. And my guest is a woman who is boldly opening new frontiers through the radical digital transformation of her family business, Associated Media Publishing. A company that her mother started three decades ago, and one that she has been leading for the past few years.

Very few industries have experienced the extent of the disruption that publishing has experienced. Julia shares how she navigated the very stormy waters of disruption. And how she has now reached a place where Associated Media Publishing can now truly say they have transformed to “omnichannel media platform".

It is a story that will be playing itself out in many industries in the years to come, and lessons that Julia conveys has a broad application to most businesses.

Keet van Zyl is the co-founder of Knife Capital. The leading South African venture capital firm specializing in the funding and scaling technology businesses. Knife had its origins in Mark Shuttleworth's "Here Be Dragons" Fund. Keet has a wealth of VC and startup experience. He writes and tweets extensively. Our conversation covers a great many topics and is a great resource for any established entrepreneur and potential business founders wanting to understand how a venture capitalist thinks.

Over the course of the past ten years, Gareth Ackerman engineered a massive corporate overall and turnaround of South Africa’s largest retailer, Pick 'n Pay with an entirely new senior leadership team.

PnP’s turnaround and the Ackerman family’s repositioning of their business and family interests serve as a textbook example of a family-business generational transition, as well as the evolution of a business from family, controlled to a professionally managed business.

In this podcast, Gareth candidly lets us into the ups and downs of the past few years and gives us a glimpse of the lessons learned and thinking behind many of the adjustments he personally made to ensure that the PnP legacy lives on long after him.

Musa Kalenga is a prime example of a new wave of digital entrepreneurs in Africa. In his concentrated and highly successful career, he managed to distinguish himself not only as a free-thinking entrepreneur but he also fitted in stints at some of the leading digital corporates as a trailblazing and transformative digital leader. These included positions at Nedbank & Facebook Africa. He has started businesses in research, adverting and marketing and now, recently, education.

He is a thought leader, an author, a father and a tv personality. His insights into digital transformation resonated deeply with me, and I do believe with all listeners who want to understand the digital landscape in Africa.

Allon Raiz is "a collector of entrepreneurs." He has built, in the words of The Economist, "the only true business incubator on the African continent”. And he has done this without any government assistance. Over 19 years, he has incubated 12500 businesses, of which over 500 are currently in his Raizcorp program. These businesses maintain an average revenue growth rate of 41 %, and 238% profit growth rate.

He has developed a scientific process of identifying high potential entrepreneurs and assisting them to sidestep costly mistakes and be the best that they can be. He writes, he lectures, and generally, he is a prime example of how much of a difference one incubator and individual can make in the course of many people’s lives. And he is now taking his approach to business incubation further up in Africa, a continent that feels holds tremendous potential for entrepreneurs and his business incubator, Raizcorp.

There are few examples of successful African technology companies. In this episode, Riël Malan talks to the CEO's & co-founders of 3 tech startup companies based in Cape Town (South Africa) that has passed the 1000 day mark are gaining significant traction in the local and international markets. They discuss their journey with its highs and lows, how they identified their respective opportunities, raised funding, and how they went about turning the dream into a reality.

Listen to Benjamin Shaw (HouseMe), James Paterson (Aerobotics) and David Torr (Ucook) tell their stories.

Ntombi Langa-Roys grew up in exile with a father that was actively involved in coordinating the struggle against apartheid. She sat around the table with her parents with many noteworthy struggle leaders as a child, while they debated the strategies and solutions to bring about change in South Africa. Over the years, this foundation guided Ntombi to play the guiding role that she plays on various high-powered boards on the JSE, to continue the transformation, and notably gender transformation in South Africa.

Her laugh is infectious, and her approach to life is pragmatic and wise. She has a passion for people and leadership development at a time when we need everyone in powerful positions to re-think our approach to the development of a leadership pipeline for the future of South Africa. She is an icon, especially to young women in leadership positions, and much can be learned from her strong, but gentle approach to being an effective leader.

Riël Malan has an in-depth discussion with her about her journey of change over the course of her lifetime at the heart of change in South Africa