Profiles of the Sapoa Convention speakers

View the profiles of the speakers that will be speaking at the SAPOA Convention in Durban

LYDIA BICI

DAMIAN BOTOULAS joined Bell Dewar Attorneys – Johannesburg in 1996. In 1999 he completed his articles and qualified as an attorney. Damian practised law in the UK in 1999 then he entered financial services with Deutsche Asset Management (UK). In 2001 he returned to South Africa and was employed first at Absa Bank and then at Investec in the Debt Capital Markets team. In 2005 Damian moved into the RMB Structured Finance Team as a specialist transactor with a focus on CMBS and RMBS transactions. During his time at Investec and Absa he worked on various conduit deals, including the formation of both Grayston Conduit and ABACAS, and on various RMBS and CMBS deals such as Private Mortgages 1, 2 and 3 and Growthpoint CMBS. Damian is currently completing a CMBS deal for a listed property company.

JOEL CHIMHANDA is the founder of JC Capital (Pty) Ltd, a Financial Advisory business that specializes in advising & partnering entrepreneurial visionaries to realise Sub-Sahara Africa business opportunities. In South Africa, JC Capital focuses on advising Black South African entrepreneurs to leverage opportunities arising from the BEE Act 53 of 2003. JC Capital’s professional team focuses on Mergers & Acquisitions, Project, Infrastructure & Property Finance, and Private Equity financing advisory mandates. Joel has over 10 years experience in Investment Banking gained in a diverse range of deals working in Cargill Trading Services and SCMB Corporate Finance in Harare, London and Johannesburg. With Standard Bank Group he held General Management & Executive Director positions in its operations in Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia & Swaziland.

ALASTAIR COLLINS is Chief Executive of Davis Langdon & Seah International, a global construction consultancy which operates throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Australia and the USA. He has been based in London since 1990, having built his early career in South Africa in the 70’s and 80’s. Alastair sits on the European and International Boards of DLSI, with a particular remit for development of business growth strategies and initiatives. He also chairs the British Council for Offices Tall Buildings Working Party and is a member of the Teaching & Research Group of the Council on Tall Buildings and the Urban Habitat.

SIMON FANSHAWE is a broadcaster and writer, hosting various shows for the BBC on Radio 4 and TV and writes regularly for The Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Observer and the Telegraph Saturday magazine. He won the 1989 Perrier Award for Comedy at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Simon has just published The Done Thing a best selling book on manners. He has lived in Brighton since 1975 and was Chairman of The Place To Be, Brighton and Hove's Celebrations of the Year 2000 and its successful bid for official city status. Until Dec 2000 Simon was Chairman and one of the founding shareholders of Juice 107.2, the local commercial music radio station. He is Chairman of Midnight Communications, the largest PR firm south of London. Simon is in his second term as Chair of the Brighton & Hove Economic Partnership and is a member of the South East Regional Assembly.

IAN FIFE has spent his business life in property and journalism. He began his career as PA to the Managing Director of Group Editors then from 1966 to 72 was political writer and foreign correspondent at The Star. Ian was then appointed Managing Director of Denton Hall Publishers and consulted on marketing and publicity to the property industry. In 1980 he became Managing Director of Landmark Residential Property and in 1983 founded Newport Property Group of which he was Executive Director. Ian has been property Editor of Financial Mail since 1996.

BARRY GIBBONS combines practical experience with maverick business sense, challenges the status quo, breaks the rules and makes the daunting complexities of business easy to understand. He also exposes the comic absurdities of modern business while emphasizing the glorious opportunities that reward courageous decisions. With humour and intelligence, Barry’s wisdom provides a practical road map for successful organizations and individuals willing to commit to the journey. With razor-sharp wit and English charm he cuts to the essence of what works and what doesn’t, bringing practical experience and a maverick business sense to bottom-line, makeover success.

In 1989 he moved to Florida as Chairman/CEO of Burger King Corporation. He achieved remarkable and acknowledged success during his five years at the helm of this previously troubled giant, making the $10 billion enterprise a winning competitor again in the USA, and a respected and increasingly demanded brand in more than 50 countries across the world. He was recognized as a "Turnaround Champ" by Fortune Magazine. He retired from big company life at the start of 1994 - his choice. He is involved in a gourmet coffee business (in the US and UK), a music publishing company (in Florida) and has interests in two restaurants in Miami. He is Chairman and co-founder of Y Arriba Y Arriba, a Latin branded food and entertainment complex that opened in Disneyland, California in 2001.

He is author of numerous best selling business books including “This Indecision is Final; If You Want to Make God Really Laugh, Show Him Your Business Plan”,” Chronicles From Planet Business, Warning! May Contain Nuts”!, “Dream Merchants and HowBoys” and most recently a book about public speaking titled, “Perfect Public Speaking”.

SPONSORED BY STANDARD BANK

BEAR GRYLLS spent three years with the British Special Forces. During this time he had a horrendous parachuting accident whilst in southern Africa and broke his back in three places. Yet three years later, after severe rehabilitation, he overcame the odds to become the youngest British climber ever to reach the summit of Mount Everest and return alive. “Facing Up”, his book on this extraordinary story soared into the Top 10 of the Bestseller list. Bear is one of the youngest and most successful motivational speakers in the world. Bear's story of progressing from hospital to the summit of the world touches people globally.

He focuses on those simple qualities that make the difference between life and death on a mountain: the intimacies and realities of teamwork, the honesty needed in intense environments and the courage that comes not from bravado but from something else inside.

"The difference between ordinary and extra-ordinary is so often just simply that little word - extra. And for me, I had always grown up with the belief that if someone succeeds it is because they are 'brilliant' or talented' or different from me…and the more of those words I heard the smaller I always felt! But the truth is often very different…and for me to learn that little, ordinary me can achieve something extra-ordinary by giving that little bit extra, when everyone else gives up, meant the world to me and I really clung to it…"

Bear continues to touch people around the world with his honesty, determination and humility.

ANTONY HARBOUR is an internationally renowned architect, planner and building design consultant. He spent 35 years with Gensler, recognised as the largest architectural firm in the world, where he was one of four founding members of the Board of Directors and Management Committee. Anthony created and directed the firm’s Design Steering Committee and was most recently based in London where he led Gensler’s European operations. His client list reads like a Who’s Who of Fortune 500 companies, financial institutions, law firms, hospitality and real estate development firms. Anthony’s award-winning designs have been published in global architecture and design journals and in 1994 he was inducted to the Interior Design Hall of Fame. He has served many property organisations including BCO and ULI and on Rice University’s Advisory Council for the School of Architecture. Anthony now resides in Santa Barbara, California.

CHRISTOPHER HART is a senior treasury economist with Absa Group Economic Research where he does real-time analysis on the financial markets. His main focus areas are currencies, interest rates, bonds, equities and derivatives instruments such as options and swaps. Christopher’s main areas of responsibility include the research and analysis of the international economy and financial markets with respect to the trends and impact on the South African economy. He has also had extensive contact with foreign banks across the world, as a support to Absa’s Correspondent Banking division. Christopher has presented papers on NEPAD, South African & African economic growth potential, Hedge Fund investing and Inflation amongst others. He is required to provide input to senior management within the bank and also to Absa’s corporate and business clients.

'ORA JOUBERT has been in private practice since 1990 and previously worked as in-house architect for the Get Ahead Foundation, a township-based NGO, from 1986 until 1989. She has held lecturing positions at the Universities of the Witwatersrand, Natal and Pretoria, and at the School of the Art Institute, Chicago, and Washington University, St. Louis, in the USA. 'Ora was Head of the Department of Architecture at the University of the Free State from 2001 until 2004, then accepted the headship of the architecture programme at the University of Pretoria. She has received numerous design awards and her work has received critical acclaim in fifty publications, including British, Australian, Russian and Hungarian journals. She was nominated in 2001 as one of the most internationally esteemed architects under the age of 40 and has, most recently, been included in The Phaidon atlas of contemporary world architecture.

RICHARD KAUNTZE has been Chief Executive of the British Council for Offices (BCO) since 1999. He was appointed in 1999 with a brief to restructure the BCO and raise its profile. In 2000 the BCO relocated from Reading to the City of London where the dedicated secretariat promotes the BCO’s mission to research, develop and communicate best practice in all aspects of the office sector. The BCO’s membership totals over 1,100 (corporate and individual), embracing both the private and public sectors, and it has become widely recognised as one of Britain’s leading property bodies. Richard is a graduate in government, politics and modern history. From 1988 – 1993 he was a Parliamentary Officer at The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). In 1993 he became Director of Policy at the British Property Federation (BPF), promoted to Deputy Director-General in 1996.

SAKUMZI (SAKI) MACOZOMA is Deputy Chairman of Standard Bank, South Africa’s largest banking institution, and a Director and significant stakeholder in empowerment company Safika Holdings (Pty) Ltd. In 1997 he became the first black person to be appointed Managing Director of Transnet and was spectacularly successful at the helm of the company, turning years of losses into profits in 1998 and 1999. Saki also oversaw the successful partial privatisation of South African Airways. He left Transnet in February 2001 to concentrate on private business interests. Saki embarked on a political career in the mid-1970s and was elected to the ANC’s most important body, the National Executive Committee (NEC) in 1991, a position he still holds having won re-election in 1994 and 1998. He became an MP in 1994 and resigned from Parliament in 1996 to take up his position at Transnet.

ANDILE MAZWAI began his career with Barnard Jacobs Mellet Securities, specialising in equity trading and sales. He founded Mazwai Securities in 2001, a stockbroking firm set up as a country-specialist research house focusing on the market impact of government economic policy; including telecommunication and mining regulation, as well as monetary and fiscal policy. Amongst its accolades, Mazwai Securities was a co-manager in the listing of Telkom. In 2003 Andile merged Mazwai Securities with BJM in a Black Economic Empowerment transaction in which the Mazwai Consortium bought 10% of BJM Holdings. He assumes the role as CEO of BJM Securities and Joint-CEO of BJM Holdings. He is a Non-executive director of the JSE Securities Exchange, and a Member and Non-executive Director of the SA Institute of Stockbrokers.

LUYANDA MPAHLWA left for exile in Germany in 1986 after having begun his Architecture degree at the University of Natal and serving a political prison term on Robben Island. He completed his Masters Engineering degree in Architecture in Berlin in 1997 and worked post-grad as a free-lance architect. Since 1997 Luyanda has been coordinating architect with MMA Architects for the South African Embassy project in Berlin, completed in November 2003. He returned to SA in 2000 and is now Principal and Director of MMA Architects in Cape Town. Through meaningful participation in Joint Ventures and in various Consortia involved in major Projects in Cape Town and Johannesburg, MMA is building a creative and technologically innovative Architectural practice in the country. Current projects include the SA AU Mission in Addis Ababa, the multi-story parkade at Cape Town International Airport and the master plan for the Port of Durban.

MUSA NGCOBO gained experience in all areas of property management services at DTZ Leadenhall. His core function was Property Investment Brokerage, which entailed sale of assets to the listed sectors and large private investors. He spent some time exploring potential empowerment markets in the property investment sector, working with the banks on funding models. In 2004 Musa joined the Aucor Group of Companies as a Real Estate Executive, having identified it as a growth market in the property sector. Musa is Chairman of the SAPOA Property Charter Committee.

JO NOERO was Director of the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of Cape Town, between 2000 and 2005 and Professor of Architecture from 2000 to date. He held the Ruth and Norman Moore Chair of Architecture at Washington University, St. Louis, U.S.A from 1996 to 2001 and was elected Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2000. Jo has been in private practice since 1984 has received international and national awards for architectural design including the Ruth and Ralph Erskine Fellowship from the Nordic Association of Architects in 1993 and many awards from the Institute of South African Architects. The work of Jo Noero has been exhibited inter alia at the Architectural Association in London, University of Michigan and Washington University in the United States of America, Netherlands Architecture Institute in Holland, University of Trondheim in Norway and the Swedish Museum of Architecture in Stockholm.

DOUGLAS PARKER began his career with 10 years at Edgars Stores and left to start his own consulting business in 1978 specializing in strategic retail planning. His firm, Douglas Parker Associates, consults to most of the major retail chains in South Africa as well as financial institutions, property developers and local authorities. Douglas founded the Retailers Liaison Committee in 1977, a body that collates industry statistics for the benefit of members; he is Chairman of the Co-ordinating Projects Committee at the Bureau of Market Research, and a member of their Board of Control. He is a past national council member of the South African Market Research Association. Douglas’s main interest lies in statistical modeling techniques for analyzing and predicting consumer behaviour, and optimizing retail store performance.

LIZ PEACE was a career civil servant with the Ministry of Defence. In 2002 Liz became Chief Executive of the British Property Federation with a remit to raise the profile of the commercial property industry in the eyes of the Government and the media. Whilst stressing that there is still lots to do, Liz has made great strides in persuading the Government that the commercial property industry should be taken seriously as a means of delivering social and economic improvement. She counts amongst her specific successes a string of improvements to planned legislation and regulation in the areas of taxation and planning, the Government’s decision not to intervene with legislation on commercial leases and most recently the leadership of a pan industry alliance that has persuaded the Government to introduce Real Estate Investment Trusts - REITs.

LI PERNEGGER is the Programme Manager for Economic Area Regeneration projects for the City of Johannesburg’s Economic Development Unit. She has been actively involved for over 16 years in development, in both the socio-economic and infrastructural arenas, and has implemented over 85 projects. Li has experience in strategic management and business planning, especially in the built environment and at all levels policy and strategy formulation and Co-ordination, supervision and administration of a variety of complex initiatives at programme and project levels. The focus now is on project identification and conceptualisation for areas in decline or not fulfilling their economic potential. Targets are Soweto, the Inner City (including the implementation of the UDZ tax incentive), City Deep and various local business districts in distress.

JOHN RABIE heads The Rabie Group which has been involved in the property market in South Africa for the past 26 years. It pioneered the concept of plot and plan in the Western Cape and developed thousands of homes along these lines since the 1980’s. The Group has been responsible for many milestone projects over the years including the mixed use Marconi Beam was heralded by Nelson Mandela, the then President as a blueprint for the development in the New South Africa. The Group is currently involved in substantial retail and commercial development with projects currently in Johannesburg and the Western Cape. The Group recently acquired the land at Century City from Nedcor for R120 million where, after the success of The Island Club - a 445 apartment development, John will continue to develop this land on the principles of new urbanism.

JEFFREY THAMSANQA RADEBE, MP is Minister of Transport in the Government of the Republic of South Africa and a Member of the National Executive Committee (NEC) and the National Working Committee of the African National Congress (ANC). Prior to this he served as Minister of Public Enterprises for six years to April 2004 and has been a member of the Business Trust since 1998. Minister Radebe joined the ANC in 1976 and has been involved in its political structure since then. During the banned years he worked in various Sub-Saharan African countries and served six years on Robben Island. On his release in 1990 Minister Radebe became Project Co-ordinator for the National Association of Democratic Lawyers (Nadel). After serving the ANC in various senior positions he was appointed Minister of Public Works in 1994.

LINDIWE SISULU, MP

GEORGE SKINNER has over 35 years in the retail and shopping centre industries, and was founder of Coreprop Retail Group. He is now Chairman of the retail consulting organisation, The Shopz Group. George served in executive positions with Mobil, Edgars and Checkers before concentrating on retail property in 1986. He has participated in every shopping centre congress in South Africa and has presented at the ICSC World Congresses in Hong Kong and Vienna. George was founder Chairman of the South African Council of Shopping Centres, served as its President and as been Honorary executive Director since 1991. George, supported by Prof Chris Cloete of the University of Pretoria, is the driving force behind SACSC’s educational courses CSCM, ACSCL and CMSC.

VICTOR SNYDERS practised as an architect and joined OK Bazaars in 1984. He was promoted to National Shopping Centre manager for OK Bazaars in 1986 and in 1987 joined RMS Syfrets as Retail Leasing and Development manager. Here he worked on numerous retail property developments until founding his own specialised retail property consultancy in 1990. Much of the company’s efforts, until 1995, were spent facilitating the growth of retail chains in locations serving the emerging market. Recent Projects undertaken by Victor include Waterfall Mall in Rustenburg, The Wedge in Morningside and Trade Route Mall, a 45 000 m2 regional mall, which was recently completed in Lenasia. In his career in retail property, Victor has focused on the dynamics of the South African retail market with specific attention to the needs of the emerging shopper.

MARIETTE WARNER has 22 years experience in property, for the past 3 years as fund manager of listed property portfolios, initially at Standard Bank Properties in joint venture with STANLIB. In July 2005 Mariette moved to STANLIB Asset Management as Head of Property Funds. Before joining Standard Bank Properties she spent five years at Allan Gray as analyst of both listed and physical property and portfolio manager of the commercial and industrial portfolio of Grayprop. The early part of Mariette’s career was mostly at Old Mutual Properties where she became Manager: Property Investments.

…….AND YOUR MASTER OF CEREMONIES

FRANCOIS WOLFAARDT spent 35 years in thoroughbred horseracing where he was most active as a marketer, promoter and journalist but became best known for his horseracing commentaries on radio and television. Not that well known is that in 1994 he changed stables when a change in family circumstances lured him into property and real estate. Since 1995 Francois has developed and sold three residential town house complexes on the East Rand and Vaal Barrage. He has been an active public speaker since 1982. Clearly a diverse career but he says he has never given thought to becoming a politician who, he believes, like babies, should be changed often – and for the same reason.

Source: eProp - www.eprop.co.za