Unmissable: Discovery Leadership Summit – Bernanke, Coe plus SA sports and business stars

It’s been my privilege to attend each Discovery Leadership Summit, the closest South Africans get to the line-ups we see in Davos. From Nassim Taleb and Rudi Giuliani through to Malcolm Gladwell, Richard Branson and the surprise appearance of our own golden boy Chad le Clos, the event is unmissable. One year I even got to participate in the programme – questioning a panel of three banking CEOs just after the Crisis – which was a pity because it meant missing Michael Porter’s presentation which we followed. The fifth instalment is to be held at the Sandton Convention Centre next Wednesday. I asked Discovery’s Marketing Director Hylton Kallner to come along to our studio for a preview.  – AH

ALEC HOGG:  In this Biznews special podcast, Hylton Kallner the Marketing Director of Discovery is with us in the studio to take us through the latest news of the Discovery Leadership Summit.  How many years have you been doing it for now?

HYLTON KALLNER:  This is our fifth summit Alec, and the first that we’ve had in about 18 months now.

ALEC HOGG:  Yes, why was there a break?

HYLTON KALLNER:  Our view is that the Summit is held on merit.  When we’re satisfied with the quality of the line-up and the standard that we’ve achieved, and then we hold the Summit.  We therefore aspire to have it once every 12 months or so, but it’s subject to us being comfortable with the quality of the speakers.

ALEC HOGG:  Well, you can’t fault the quality of the speakers this year including Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve Chairman who is now with the Brookings Institute. I was with someone from the Brookings Institute this week and he said it was a huge coup for them to get the former Fed Governor into the Brookings Institute. To get him to come to South Africa to talk at your Leadership Summit.  It must have taken some doing.

HYLTON KALLNER:  Yes, we are thrilled.  Dr Bernanke, having just retired as Chairman of the US Fed, is without a doubt probably the leading thinker at the moment on global economics and we’re thrilled to have him speak to us in what will probably be his first public speaking engagement, following his retirement.

ALEC HOGG:  Has he been to the country before?

HYLTON KALLNER:  No, we don’t think he has.

ALEC HOGG:  So this is a first in many respects.  Have the ticket sales been running since you made the announcement of Bernanke’s appearance?

HYLTON KALLNER:  Yes, there’s been a huge amount of activity since the announcement, and I think the important thing for us is that he is obviously topical.  He’s the headliner.  He will be hopefully incredibly insightful on the day, but I think – importantly – he’s really part of a borderline that speaks to a cross-section of society from sport, to entrepreneurship, to economics and business.

ALEC HOGG:  I have to ask you when you settled with Brian Joffe.  I had a chat with him on Wednesday and I said ‘we ran a piece on Biznews on Friday that you;re speaking’ and he said that wouldn’t have been possible, because I only confirmed after that. It sounds as though Brian Joffe has negotiated until the last minute.

HYLTON KALLNER:  Brian, I think, was always a uncertain speaker because his corporate results are coming out around a similar time, and he’s also following his football team in the UK as they’re playing in a cup final. We’re thrilled to have him on board; I think his was a complicated diary to match, but he will be speaking in part of a great line-up on entrepreneurship.

ALEC HOGG:  But it is nice that you have Joffe and Laurie Dippenaar: two great South African entrepreneurs who haven’t actually been included on too many platforms in South Africa, let alone elsewhere in the world.

HYLTON KALLNER:  Yes, and they’re really both founders of what today, are two of the biggest South African businesses that we have on the JSE and in fact, globally.  I think they will hopefully share unique insights in terms of building really substantial and successful corporates from entrepreneurial roots.

ALEC HOGG:  Laurie is closely connected to Discovery?

HYLTON KALLNER:  Yes, Laurie was one of the founders of RMBH, which subsequently gave birth to a large extent, to Discovery.  He was our first Chairman and so we have strong ties to Laurie, but I think he’s well known for a broad range of interest and having started many very successful businesses.

ALEC HOGG:  You talk about entrepreneurship…a disappointed Howard Schultz from Starbucks not being on the line-up after initially coming.  What happened there?

HYLTON KALLNER:  I think the difficulty and the complexity with any sitting CEO is that their diaries will be subject to incredible flux, and I think that was the issue.  He unfortunately did have to withdraw for personal reasons, but I think they’re very much linked to his role as CEO and Chairman of Starbucks today.

ALEC HOGG:  And that’s not all, as they say in some of those adverts.  Will Al Gore ever come back here?  I ask this because in Davos this year, he was again a feature.  My wife is a greenie and she was delighted to see him there, and I’m sure there are many people here would love to see him back.

HYLTON KALLNER:  He was incredibly popular.  We’ve had many requests.  We’ve never actually featured any speaker twice in the history of the summit, obviously with the exception of (Discovery CEO) Adrian Gore.  The speaking line-up has changed in its entirety every single time, and it’s something that we will obviously, I think revisit in time.  I think Al Gore has been particularly popular.  He will be a great person to bring back.

ALEC HOGG:  Another one this year though, is Joe Stiglitz – the Nobel Prize winner.

HYLTON KALLNER:  Yes, he’s twice a Nobel laureate.  He’s Professor of Economics and I think Alec, will give us some incredible insights in particular, into the issue which he currently is focusing on – that being inequality.  I think…obviously, a very hot topic at Davos and one, which he is an authority on, so I think we look forward to Professor Stiglitz’s talk.

ALEC HOGG:  And Sebastian Coe?

HYLTON KALLNER:  Yes, Lord Coe: a gold medallist in his own right at the Olympics, but he then also led the London Olympics – the bid to host the Olympics and then the organising committee – arguably one of the most successful Olympics of our time.  Hopefully, he’ll share the lessons of leadership that he learned along the way, and I think really demonstrate to the world the strength of sport to unify a country and really lead the world in staging amazing games.

ALEC HOGG:  Hylton, you have an amazing line-up.  Have you ever had a stronger one?

HYLTON KALLNER:  We’ve had very strong line-ups each year.  I think this year is probably the most varied – the broadest.  We also have our coaches of our national sports teams in what I think will be an interesting kind of discussion.  No leader is under more public scrutiny than a sports coach is, so we have three of our top coaches: Gordon Igesund from football, Gary Kirsten obviously, the cricketing coach, and Heyneke Meyer the Springbok coach.  It’s really an interesting line-up there, where they’ll share some of the leadership lessons they learned as coaches.  I think that when you bring that together with the rest of the line-up, we have probably the most powerful line-up that we’ve ever had.

ALEC HOGG:  It is interesting, bringing in the sporting angle this time, because when Tim Noakes was a late replacement I recall, he was extremely popular and brought Chad le Clos at the same time.  Clearly, the feedback you got from that must have influenced your decision.

HYLTON KALLNER:  The feedback was incredibly positive and it highlighted something that I think we’ve always known, and that that is sport is incredibly close to the heart of every South African.  As a company that is focused on making people healthier sport, for us, is really an incredibly powerful vehicle to do that.  It also provides a number of unique leadership lessons and lessons that many businesses leaders and leaders amongst society and CEO’s, can take a lot from, so we think that’s the added dimension that the sports panel will bring along with Lord Coe.  It will just give the summit that much more appeal, applicability as well as a light-hearted aspect, hopefully, that will just expand the day.

ALEC HOGG:  Do you cover your costs with the ticket sales?

HYLTON KALLNER:  We subsidise a significant amount.  The investment we make is substantial.  The ticket costs are really there to act as a supplement, but we invest a significant amount as Discovery at the end of the day.

ALEC HOGG:  Why?

HYLTON KALLNER:  We think that it’s important to really uplift the broader business, societal approach, and exposure in South Africa.  We think that by bringing global leaders to our country and exposing our business leaders to that we can make a positive impact more broadly, and inspire our South African leadership to really great things.  We think, as a nation, that’s really what we should be focusing on.

ALEC HOGG:  Is there any direct business impact, though?  Can you perhaps bring clients to do that?

HYLTON KALLNER:  We do, but it’s always difficult to measure and I think it’s always a balancing act because the demand for tickets tends to exceed the supply.  For us, it’s about making a positive impact on the entire business leadership, and this is the way we can do it.

ALEC HOGG:  These guys don’t come cheap.

HYLTON KALLNER:  No, the actual summit itself is an expensive exercise, but we think that the impact that it has – more broadly – makes the return that we as a patriotic South African company, will draw our benefits from long into the future.

ALEC HOGG:  Who has your favourite been so far?  You’ve had quite a list.

HYLTON KALLNER:  We’ve had many.  I think for me, the one that stands out is probably the one from the very first summit Malcolm Gladwell, purely because of the really insightful nature of his presentation.  In every single year though, we’ve had some really stand-out speakers and I think it’s hard to pin one down.

ALEC HOGG:  It’s funny that you should say that because I was thinking exactly the same thing.  I can see him now on the stage, walking around, comfortably engaging with the audience, talking about Fleetwood Mac having 15 albums – or was it 16 – before they finally hit it, and I guess that’s what you’re doing here.  You’re creating memories.  You’re enlightening and uplifting, but there are many things that we as South Africans would not be exposed to otherwise.

HYLTON KALLNER:  Yes, and I think the uniqueness of the day is that it’s completely live.  We encourage the audience to ask questions directly to the presenters, and it runs back-to-back, literally from 8:30am to 5:00pm where you see a dozen of the South African and global business elite.

ALEC HOGG:  How many people are in that hall?

HYLTON KALLNER:  There’ll be somewhere between about 1500 and 2000 this year.

ALEC HOGG:  Hylton Kallner is the Marketing Director at Discovery.

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