Course with Gibs focuses on how business and government can work together

Cabinet reshuffle. Credit downgrade. Radical Economic Transformation. White Monopoly Capital. State capture. Price fixing. Political risk. Collusion. Corruption.

South Africa is at a crossroads. The decisions we take this year both as a country and at a personal level, will have consequences for decades.

In the face of political turmoil, it’s easy to become pessimistic. Yet an overlooked benefit of the upheaval of the last year has been a great improvement in the working relationship between business and the state. This is something to cement and build on.

Engaging with policy makers, Parliament, regulators and municipalities are the day-to-day realties of working with government. In times of political and economic shocks we need to keep crafting an open, effective and ethical working relationship between state officials and executives.

Yet, few executives or managers in the private sector appreciate the aspirations and pressures of government, or know how to engage constructively with public policy concerns. Equally, few officials have worked in a company or can empathise with the pressures of running a business.

We need opportunities for business executives and government officials to learn best practice methods on how to work together professionally, constructively and ethically.

Recognising this, the Gordon Institute for Business Science (GIBS) is partnering with Genesis Analytics to present a two-day executive education programme, “Business and Government Relations: Working more effectively with the public sector”.

The programme will run on 15 and 16 May 2017 at GIBS.

This new programme will be invaluable for managers who work in the fields of government relations, public policy and advocacy, stakeholder relations, strategy, citizenship, communications, as well as senior public officials who interact regularly with the private sector.

The programme will be a mix of global and local context, political analysis, technical frameworks and tools, class exercises and best practice case studies on business and government interaction from

• Carol Paton, Deputy-editor Business Day;
• David Lewis, Executive Director of Corruption Watch;
• Kirston Greenop, Head of Regulatory Advocacy at Standard Bank;
• Yolisa Kani, Head of Public Policy at Uber;
• Khulekani Mathe, BASA and former head of the National Planning Commission; and
• Tanya Cohen, CEO of Business Unity South Africa.

The programme is convened by GIBS faculty member, Ryan Short, Partner and Head of Shared Value at Genesis Analytics.

Genesis Analytics is the largest economics-based consultancy in Africa and has worked with companies, governments and regulators across the continent. This gives Genesis a unique view of the private and public sectors and how they can work together as partners.