TLS 2017 | Speakers

Prof Stephen Adei will take the long journey from Ghana to join our conference! Mr. Adei teaches business administration at Ashesi University College in Ghana. Ashesi’s mission is to educate a new generation of ethical and entrepreneurial leaders in Africa by cultivating within her students critical thinking skills, concern for others and the courage it will take to transform a continent. Prof Adei will give a keynote talk on how to educate leaders – vividly illustrated by the example of his own university, Ashesi University College in Ghana. We are looking forward to learning from Prof Adei and are more than delighted to call him one of our speakers!

Agnes Atim Apea will give a speech about “Women and Leadership in Africa”. Dr Apea is a vivid example for empowerment among women. She is the founder of the 'Hope Development Initiative' (HDI), whose aim it is to provide services to female farmers in Northern Uganda. She enables mothers to provide school education to their children and benefit from a better health care. Furthermore, she is a well-esteemed gender and development consultant cooperating with the African Union, the Commonwealth, the United Nations Agencies and, most recently, the Uganda Women Parliamentary Association and the Pan African Parliament. Dr Apea’s work is globally appreciated and respected. In 2015/16 she became Africa’s Most Influential Woman in Agriculture and received the Golden Jubilee Medal from the President of Uganda. We are looking forward to her input and learning from her perspectives.

Bunmi Banjo is a dynamic business leader passionate about helping people to create economic opportunities especially in developing markets. With more than 15 years of experience in North America, Asia and Africa she is currently responsible for Google's Growth Engine & Brand Lead in Africa. This includes the company’s effort to equip millions of young citizens and SMEs with digital skills for future jobs and business growth. In her speech "Transcultural Leadership in Sub-Saharan African Business" on day 1 of our Summit, she will share her experiences with us and give us some insights in her work. We are more than happy to welcome an ambassador of such a big and powerful enterprise.

Carl Heinrich Bruhn will lead a workshop focusing on farming and the agro-industry. He is the founder and CEO of Amatheon Agri Holding NV, a European agribusiness and food company, headquartered in Berlin and operating in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Uganda. Amatheon aims to unlock Sub-Saharan Africa’s vast agricultural potential by combining world-class farming techniques, partnerships with smallholder farmers, and vertical value chain integration. Bruhn’s long-term vision is a sustainable approach combining international expertise and local African know-how. This made Amatheon, which was founded in 2011, a leading player in the African agricultural sector. In addition to those activities, Carl Heinrich Bruhn runs a family-owned farm in the north of Germany. We are proud to welcome such an experienced entrepreneur.

Let us welcome another South African speaker, Professor Derick de Jongh! In his keynote on “Education for Responsible Leadership and Corporate Citizenship in Sub-Saharan Africa”, Derick de Jongh will discuss the topic of educating tomorrow’s leaders. In the open discussion and the workshop Derick de Jongh leads jointly with Dr Angelica Marte on day two of the Conference, he will debate Leadership in Sub-Saharan Africa with us. Derick de Jongh is the Director of the Albert Luthuli Centre for Responsible Leadership at the University of Pretoria and founder of the Centre for Corporate Citizenship at the University of South Africa. The focal areas of his work include corporate responsibility, responsible leadership and global environmental change.

As the Director of Government Relations and CSR at SAP Africa as well as a member of the SAP Digital Government team, Sunil Geness leads all aspects of government relations, donor relations and corporate social responsibility activities for SAP stakeholders across Africa.  He has vast experience in corporate and public organisations and has appeared on several local and international television networks as a presenter, political analyst and commentator.    Geness has also delivered several thought leadership papers and presentations at local, African and International conferences. In his various capacities he has also represented South Africa, the South African business community and SAP at high level negotiations and meetings at the United Nations, European Union, European Commission, the World Bank, BRICS and other multilateral agencies on several occasions. He currently chairs the Deregulation Working Group of the SA BRICS Council. Sunil is a member of the SAP Africa Code Week, Global steering Committee.   Geness has a passion for science, technology and innovation and began his career as a physical science and electronics teacher before he moved on to develop a wide range of experience in Government, Quasi-Government and Private sectororganisations.  These roles have included a policy making and implementation stint at the South African National Government, followed by a government modernization role and subsequently a political advisory role at the State Information Technology Agency (SITA), before he was head-hunted by the German global software giant-SAP.   Geness holds a Bachelor of Commerce (UNISA), Bachelor of Commerce Honours Cum Laude (UNISA), Master of Management in Public and Development Management (Witwatersrand), HED (Springfield College) and has been the recipient of scholarships for executive leadership programmesat leading global business schools in the United Kingdom (Birmingham), the United States (Harvard) and France (INSEAD).    A keen advocate of sustainability and environmentalism, he has also received the World Wide Fund (WWF), One Planet Leaders, sustainability scholarship in 2009.

Michael Monnerjahn has been Manager for Public Relations of the German – African Business Association since 2005. He is responsible for Publications and CRM. He studied political science and law in Bremen, Durham and Hamburg and holds a Diploma in political science. The German-African Business Association sees itself as an excellent link between all institutions which are interested in economic relations with Africa. As a representative of the German-African Business Association, he will introduce the potential of economic opportunities in Sub-Saharan Africa. He will co-host the open discussion with Prof. Dr. Wieland to share his experiences with us. We are very glad to welcome Mr. Monnerjahn at the Lake of Constance!

Having graduated in business administration and cultural management, Angelica Marte pursued a career in the consumer industry before becoming a research assistant and taking her PhD at the Private University Witten/Herdecke and, subsequently, working as a Research Affiliate at the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence. At ZU, she has held a variety of research and teaching posts, most recently as Executive Director of ZU Professional School. Her main research interests are female/mixed leadership, leadership development & diversity. Her research has been supplemented by film making e.g. in Seychelles and Morocco. She recently founded “more is more”, a company focusing on a gender-balanced leadership approach. Prof Derick de Jongh and Dr Angelica Marte will conduct the workshop on leadership in Sub-Saharan Africa. We are very happy to have Dr Marte at our conference!

Thaddeus Metz will be giving a speech about the "Ethics of African Leadership“. He is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Johannesburg where he is affiliated with the Department of Philosophy. He is particularly well known for attracting a global audience to the African tradition of philosophy. Furthermore, he argues for relational values and that they should be taken seriously as an alternative to the more individualist Western tradition. He has published more than 200 books, chapters, and articles, with several works reprinted and translated into, inter alia, Chinese, Persian, Polish, and Portuguese. We are looking forward to welcome Prof Metz at Lake Constance in November.

Andrea Nono will speak about “Leadership and Management in South African Enterprises – Challenges and Factors of Success” on the second day of the conference. Andrea Nono is the CEO of MTU South Africa (Pty) Ltd, a Rolls-Royce Power Systems company that represents its brands in over 30 countries in the Sub-Saharan Africa region. Rolls-Royce Power Systems is a world leader in engines, propulsion systems and distributed power generation plants. Nono has over 17 years of experience in the industry. She has lived and worked in Germany and the USA before she moved to South Africa in 2014. We are looking forward to her speech and are proud to welcome her at Zeppelin University in November.

Dr. Lars Satow is an education principal consultant and professional learning executive at SAP. He started his career at SAP Learning Solutions where he was responsible for the world-wide SAP certification program. Today, he is in charge of collaborative, social learning and digital skill development on SAP’s cloud platform SAP Learning Hub with more than 600,000 learners. In addition, he is driving the development of digital teaching assistants with machine learning and SAP Leonardo. Lars Satow holds a PhD in education psychology from the Freie Universität Berlin and a diploma of advanced studies in education management and corporate learning from the University of St. Gallen.

Being a renowned researcher and expert in Political Sciences, Bolaji Olumuyiwa Omitola will provide insights into the Sub-Saharan political landscape and lead the workshop on “Governance”. Dr Omitola is Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Osun State University in Nigeria. He has published scholarly articles on regional political affairs in local as well as international journals. His research interests include political institutions, comparative politics, and public administration in Nigeria: federalism, party system, religious fundamentalism, resource distribution, terror, and security. We are looking forward to welcoming him at our Transcultural Leadership Summit!

The workshop ”Learning from Start Ups“ is held by Victoria Naashika Quaye, the CEO of Naaviq Company Limited. Quaye, an expert on water scarcity in Africa, invented a method of customized water treatment. Naaviq Company Limited offers solutions providing affordable high-quality water for all purposes, for example within community water projects, the production of mineral water as well as water treatment training. For her sensational idea she has been asked by the United Nations Youth Ghana to become the Ambassador for clean water and sanitation at UN youth Ghana. Within the workshop you will be given the chance to discuss with Mrs. Quaye the various challenges and chances awaiting entrepreneurs in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Mr Wassenberg is Chief Financial Officer of Rolls-Royce Power Systems which is part of the British technology and engineering group Rolls-Royce. He heads the Corporate Services division of the company and is also Labour Director and member of the Board of Management of MTU Friedrichshafen, the Rolls-Royce Power Systems subsidiary. In the various major leadership positions he has held, Mr Wassenberg has made a significant contribution to international decision-making, and will be giving us his thoughts in a dinner speech. Once again our main sponsor, Rolls-Royce Power Systems believes in our mission and our vision of transcultural leadership. Thanks to its financial support, we can bring our ideas and concepts to life. We are delighted to welcome Mr Wassenberg to this event and we thank Rolls-Royce Power Systems for its continued trust and support.

Alexandra van der Ploeg, Global CSR Program Director at SAP SE, has been with SAP since 1999. She started with SAP Switzerland in charge of management development and over the course of the next ten years held various managerial positions in Human Resources. For the past seven years, she has managed global CSR programs at SAP SE. In this role, she is in charge of setting the direction for corporate volunteering at SAP as well as driving the conceptual design and implementation of a variety of pro-bono volunteering offerings, such as the SAP Social Sabbatical portfolio. Alexandra van der Ploeg is currently also serving on the executive committee of IMPACT2030 and is part of the Leadership Council of the Realized Worth Institute. She holds an MBA from Henley Business School in Great Britain and has lived in numerous countries, such as Russia and Brazil.

Meet Professor Josef Wieland at our conference! He is the director of the Leadership Excellence Institute Zeppelin (LEIZ) and holds the Chair of Institutional Economics – Organizational Governance, Integrity Management & Transcultural Leadership at Zeppelin University. Prof Wieland has been an expert in the field of Compliance and Business Ethics for more than 20 years. He is an adviser and compliance monitor for the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the World Bank. He conceptualized, implemented and audited integrity- and compliance management systems at various international companies such as Allianz, ABB, BASF and Daimler. Josef Wieland received the Max Weber Award for Business Ethics of the Association of German Industry in 1999, and the Research Award of the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg in 2004. In the context of the German G20 presidency in 2016/2017, Prof Wieland was part of the Think20 process, co-leading the working group „Sustainability in Global Value Chains“.

Mandu dos Santos Pinto, Architect ETH specializes on sustainable construction and sustainable urban development. Since 2004, he owns the architectural and consulting company MANDU|architexture & urbanizm which addresses the development of innovative and sustainable solutions in urban African contexts. With a special focus on Switzerland, Germany, Angola, Mozambique and Senegal, his projects range from designing plus-energy houses, counselling ministries and other institutions in terms of energy-efficient construction, to the development of assessment schemes for sustainable construction. He is strategic director of the Live-With-Water project which improves the living conditions of people living in flood-prone areas through infrastructure and participative urban development. Currently, he is developing a tool for the German federal office of construction and spatial planning to assess sustainable construction abroad.