PROJECT MANAGEMENT SUMMIT 2017 & GALA DINNER

Pieter Geldenhuys
2017 PMI SA Summit Keynote speaker

His high-energy presentations brim with originality and storytelling, which are punctuated by high-impact visuals and soul-penetrating music. It is no wonder then that former audience members have compared Pieter’s talks to Hollywood hits. Apparently, attending one of his talks is akin to watching a blockbuster movie.

However, don’t let the high entertainment value of his presentations lead you to underestimate him or his presentations. Drawing upon his experience as an academic, Pieter and his team conduct extensive research into the possible future of each client’s industry. Their findings are then packaged into an enormously entertaining, yet intellectual and motivational tour-de-force.

It is this winning combination that has turned Pieter into an internationally lauded, sought-after speaker, who has been Impressing television, radio and conference audiences in more than 20 countries for longer than a decade and a half. He has addressed those in the fields of digital transformation, technology strategy, telecommunication strategy and innovation management. A futurist and innovation expert, Pieter employs his popular keynotes to demonstrate his belief that the only way one is effectively able to predict the future, is by creating it. A popular theme throughout all his talks is showing how to unlock value within organisations to make them more effective and resilient.

Pieter certainly has the credentials and experience to back up all that talk. He is the founder and director of the Institute for Technology Strategy and Innovation (ITSI), which is aligned with North-West University, where he is also an Extraordinary Lecturer in Technology Strategy. He is also adjunct faculty at Cornell University, Duke, Henley and GIBS.

Pieter holds a degree in Electronic Engineering, as well as an MBA. He is currently working towards his PhD, with his research focusing on Innovation, Complex Adaptive Systems and Artificial Intelligence.

For further information about Pieter and his illustrious career, visit www.pietergeldenhuys.com.
 

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Lynn Baker
PMP Recognition Dinner Speaker

When she is not delivering dynamic keynote speeches at conferences and corporate events, Lynn Baker is coaching executives and aspirant speakers with the aim of polishing their performances to international standards. As the director of the Unique Speaker Bureau’s Executive Speaker Programme at Henley Business School, she is acknowledged as the top professional speaker coach in the country. In addition, she heads up the USB Speaker Training Academy, where she is responsible for training and mentoring aspiring speakers for the USB talent pool.
Lynn’s vast business experience has positioned her to hold forth on many topics, but she specialises in customer experience. Her background heading up an international sales division for a global company in London, and working as general manager of a leading entertainment brand for 10 years, has more than equipped her for the job. She has also sold luxury property in the Caribbean and understands the driving forces behind successful selling. In 2006, she deepened her knowledge of customer experience by attending the Disney Quality Service course at Disneyland, Florida. Disney’s customer service philosophies resonated with her and she has applied them with great success in the South African business environment; this has enabled her to share her wisdom with audiences everywhere.
Customer experience is a multi-faceted philosophy that takes a 360° view of a customer and, when implemented, results in increased sales and improved customer retention. During her fast-paced and highly visual presentations, Lynn uses examples of successful global brands such as Disney, Apple and Coca-Cola to illustrate how combining customer focus, innovation and technology attracts new customers, retains current ones and creates brand advocacy.
Dynamic and astute, Lynn is an asset wherever she speaks or coaches. Her keynote topics include ‘Customer Experience – The Key Point of Competitive Differentiation’ and ‘Executive Presence – Beyond Managing to Leadership’. Follow Lynn on Linkedin at https://www.linkedin.com/in/lynn-baker-aa44a724/.
 
 

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Dr Michiel Christiaan (Giel) Bekker
Presentation topic: “Project Management in the Modern Era – Rethinking the Way We Think About Projects”

If anyone is qualified to expand on this topic, it is Giel. This Senior Lecturer in Project Management at the Graduate School of Project Management at the University of Pretoria is also the recipient of the Project Management Excellence Award from PMSA for Outstanding Performance in the Field of Project Execution. Giel co-founded the Africa Chapter of the Construction Industry Institute (CII) and still serves as Director.

He actively participated in developing the ISO 21500 – Guidance on Project Management, the international standard for what constitutes good practice in project management. With a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Giel is a registered Professional Engineer. He also boasts an MBA and a PhD in Project Governance and is an Erasmus Mundus scholar who has taught at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, and at Umea University in Sweden.

After starting his career in the petrochemical industry, Giel remains actively involved as a consultant for projects related to the mining, construction, automotive and infrastructure sectors.
In his presentation, Giel will investigate the possible ‘change agents’ – such as big data, artificial intelligence, the internet of things, robotics and automation, 3D-printing, drones, societal dynamics and climate change – that could disrupt the project management industry. He will also look at how project managers will be forced to think differently about how to define and implement projects in order to successfully adapt.
 

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Sonja Blignaut
Presentation topic: “Managing in Uncertain Times”

The owner and founder of More Beyond, and with more than 15 years’ local and international consulting experience, Sonja partners with leaders, Organisational Development (OD) practitioners and other decision-makers to enable responsiveness and strategic agility in organisations. More thinking partner than coach, she helps leaders make sense of intractable, or so-called ‘wicked’ problems.

Her expertise lies in disrupting the existing thinking of leaders and practitioners in organisations and to shift existing practices to be more congruent with the fast-changing world of work.
Sonja is the exclusive South African partner for Prof. Dave Snowden, author of the Cynefin sense-making framework and supplies training in their open source methods, as well as in the Sensemaker software suite.

Sonja is a popular speaker at business schools, conferences and events. During her presentation, she will explore the nature of complex adaptive systems, and also answer the practical “so what?” questions in terms of what this means for our work practices.

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Leabetswe (Lea) Bomvana
Presentation topic: “Getting Benefits Realisation Management Right

Lea is the Divisional Director for Strategic Projects at Liberty Group, South Africa, where she is responsible for bridging the gap between Liberty’s 2020 strategy and the intended results. With 14 years’ project management experience in Information Technology (IT), Lea has occupied various roles within the IT Project Management Office (PMO) in both the public and private sectors. 
Her career highlights include a successful, five-year stint at Transnet SOC, Ltd., where she was Deputy Chairman of the Transnet Project Management Forum from 2013 to 2015, as well as a Portfolio Manager in the Group IT PMO, which she established and structured. She also standardised project governance processes across Transnet’s seven operating divisions.
In order to branch out and diverse her industry experience, Lea was a Strategy and Management Consultant at Letsema Consulting and Advisory, a sub-Saharan partner to McKinsey. Between 2003 and 2008, Lea worked in various Gauteng Provincial Government Departments, first as Assistant Director before becoming Deputy Director, where she was responsible for managing projects that advanced the mandate of those departments.

In 2015, Lea won the SAP Quality Award of Excellence in the category Business Transformation in Africa.

Lea will be discussing the benefits of benefit realisation management, and the need for organisations to make informed critical decisions on how and where to invest their limited time and resources to yield optimum benefits in returns while operating in a volatile, uncertain and constantly changing economic and business environment.

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Willem Louw
Presentation topic: “The executive sponsor as key factor in mega-project success”

Retiring after a 25-year career at the Sasol Group, where he was Managing Director for Sasol Technology – the technology/project management business unit within the group – Willem did not stop working. Instead, he joined forces with the Transnet Centre for Business Management of Projects at USB Executive Development, the public executive development company within the University of Stellenbosch Business School (USB).

He is currently juggling being chairperson of the Council of the University of the Free State with obtaining a PhD at USB. This former Non-Executive Director of Group Five Limited already boasts an array of qualifications, including Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Civil Engineering, the latter being in Construction Management. Willem also completed the Graduate Development Programme in Project Management at UNISA. He is a registered member of the South African Council for the Project and Construction Management Professions (SACPCMP), and a fellow of the South African Academy of Engineering (SAAE).

Willem will be discussing the critical role of the executive sponsor when it comes to influencing the outcome of a mega-project, which is typically defined as a project worth more than US$1 billion.
 

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Dr Puleng Makhoalibe
Presentation topic: “Launcing in Beta Mode and Learning to Improve”

Puleng is a specialist of technology, a facilitator of creativity, and a student of where these worlds meet. She lives in the intersection between technology and humanities and provides solutions in that space. Puleng is currently the Head of Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship at Henley Business School.

Puleng’s academic background includes a BSc in Computer Science and Statistics, Postgrad Certificate in Management, an MBA from UCT and a PhD in Business Management from UCT.  Her research area is in the area of Innovative Project Management and tapping on the power of collective creative ability in teams to birth novelty and creativity essential in 21st century projects.
She has presented papers at annual conferences such as the African Creativity Conference, the SA Innovation Summit, GSB Business Conference, the Project Management Institute Conference (USA) and Education and Technology Conference (Spain) on the subject of creativity, innovation and technology, especially using design thinking to harness creativity of the project teams.
During her discussion, Puleng will talk about the significant barriers to change that have to be overcome in the field of project management in order to create a capacity for more subjective, interactive and interpretive innovations. She advises designing new ways of thinking which will entail practices, mind-sets and processes to help teams to collaborate in order to co-create innovative solutions.
 

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Prof. Carl Marnewick
Presentation topic: “Sustainability in Project Management”

After trading in a professional career as an Information Technology (IT) project manager, Carl Marnewick entered the world of academia. As well as being a professor at the University of Johannesburg, Carl currently heads the Information Technology Project Management Knowledge and Wisdom Research Cluster, which focuses on research in IT project management and include, amongst others, governance, auditing and assurance, complexity, IT project success, benefits management, sustainability and Agile project management.

Jumping into academia has afforded Carl the opportunity to immerse himself and to question why IT/IS-related projects are perceived as failures and do not provide the intended benefits that were originally anticipated. It has placed him in the ideal position to address this problem, by developing a framework (Vision-to-Project, i.e. V2P) which ensures that projects within an organisation are linked to its vision.

Carl’s research has given him a national and international presence. He was actively involved in developing new international project management standards ISO21500 and ISO21503 (portfolio management), as well as PMI’s Standard for Program Management (4thedition). Project Management SA has awarded Carl the Excellence in Research Award as recognition for his active contribution to the local and international body of knowledge by means of conducting and publishing scientific research.

His presentation will focus on the importance of incorporating sustainability from the onset of a project and how, if done correctly the first time, it can lead to the ultimate success of the project.

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Joe Newbert
Presentation topic: “Unfinished Symphony of Business Analysis and Project Management”

Simply put, Joe is an unabashedly passionate catalyst for modern business change.
As Managing Director at BCMG and Founder of Inter-View Report, Joe is internationally renowned as the foremost thinker on contemporary business analysis, project delivery and change management competency.

Through BCMG’s sought-after business analysis training courses, advisory consulting, and his own proactive industry involvement and disruptive community innovations, Joe is helping to grow the next generation of business and IT consultants.

Joe’s presentation will take an intimate look at the journey of business change over the last few decades, and will consider what it takes to achieve “Getting it right, the first time” in the 4th industrial revolution. Joe’s talk will unpack the future challenges for project delivery and spell out the transformation required to achieve business success.
 

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Dr. Teri Okoro
Presentation topic: “Emerging Trends in P3M: Assessing Africa’s Scorecard”

Teri is the Founder and Director of TOCA Consultancy and has extensive experience in leading and delivering projects in the UK and throughout Africa. This practicing architect and construction programme manager is also a Registered Project Professional, a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (FRIBA), a Fellow of the Association for Project Management (FAPM), and has obtained an MBA. Along with all her other ventures, she also holds Non-Executive Director positions and sits on the Diversity Panel of the UK Construction Industry Council.

Teri has a special interest in developing diverse talent and inclusive leadership. For over a decade, she has presented, written and published widely on these topics in the UK, Europe and internationally, including at the PMC Conference 2017 in Cameroon, Project Spring 2016 in Lithuania and the International PM Conference in 2015 in Panama.

Earlier this year, Teri founded P3M Africa, which conducted the first Pan-Africa Survey of Project Professionals. An advisor to several organisations and conferences, she also acts as a mentor.
Teri’s presentation will provide insights into some key global trends in project and programme management delivery, focusing on people, approach and organisations. She will also, where relevant, draw on the preliminary findings of the 2017 Pan-Africa P3M Survey, and discuss and engage with delegates about Africa’s scorecard.
 

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Dr. Alexandre Rodrigues
Presentation topic: “Getting it right the first time vs. a continuously evolving scope: building a synergistic duality between traditional and agile project management”

Alexandre boasts over 25 years’ experience in Project Management in various countries and across an array of industries and sectors, including corporate and military. He also has over a decade of teaching experience, having lectured on Project Management and System Dynamics modelling-related topics at several universities in Europe. His findings and insights are regularly published in business and refereed scientific journals and he often appears as guest speaker on the international conference circuit.

Apart from being the founding President of the Portugal Chapter of AACE, he is also the Executive Partner of the PMO Projects Group, which delivers advanced project management training and consulting services to clients across Europe and other parts of the world. In addition to that, Alexandre is a Senior Consultant for the US-based Cutter Consortium, which belongs to the Agile Project Management Practice. He also has several years’ experience as a software engineer.

Alexandre has been a leading force in implementing Earned Value Management Systems for project and programme control worth billions of US dollars, especially in the mining, oil and gas, and infrastructure sectors.

Alexandre holds a five-year licentiate degree in Systems and Informatics Engineering and a PhD in Management Sciences, specialising in Project Management and System Dynamics. These academic achievements have placed him in an ideal position to supervise several Master’s and Doctoral candidates in the Project Management discipline.

During his presentation, Alexandre will examine the two apparently incompatible project management approaches of traditional and agile project management as potentially complementary  - both approaches can be used to address different components of a project.