ConFab makes a comeback

By Colin Ford

I heard a lovely story of leadership at our (recently relaunched) ConFab session. I was talking to a senior business leader about who does the cooking in the house. She told me she used to cook every Sunday for the coming week. But then her children asked her to stop spending all day in the kitchen. They wanted to spend the time with her. So she organised meal deliveries during the week. After some time, the kids said they had grown bored of having the same food over and over. So she taught them to cook – at 12 and 10 years old.

“Now the kids cook Monday to Thursday and we make a plan on the other nights,” she told me.

It occurred to me how simple yet unexpected the solution was, and how empowering people, rather than pandering to them, is a really strong leadership trait.

As kids, we learnt to cook at a very young age and it’s something that stood me in good stead when I became an adult and moved out of my parents’ house. So too for the exec in our story. Her kids will thank her one day for her guidance.

This was just one of the inspiring conversations that took place at the ConFab session on 21 August 2024 – the first in what promises to be many fabulous networking events.

Our first ever ConFab took place on 5 October 2015. It was headlined by the late Gianni Mariano, founder of the Mastrantonio chain of restaurants and doyen of the Artists Proof Studio. Gianni shared his thoughts on what it takes to make a good business and brand, with the golden thread of marketing and people running throughout. He used the process of making risotto as a metaphor.

Our latest ConFab focused on optimism. Carel spoke for a few minutes before opening the session up to the guests (about 15 of us) who shared their feelings of positivity around the future of our country. “We’re staying,” was the overall sentiment.

During his talk, Carel made reference to a recent webinar hosted by EasyEquities featuring internationally acclaimed economic advisor, Frans Cronje. Frans’s webinar focused on facts, rather than emotion, spelling out how South Africa has been great before, and can be great again. You can read more about the detail of Frans’s talk on the EasyEquities blog: Frans Cronje on South Africa’s GNU: Key takeaways for investors.

The rest of the session was about rekindling old friendships and making new connections. Most of the guests were from the financial services industry, so finding something to talk about was not a problem. We sat chatting way past the stated closing time.

ConFab will once again become a regular event. Keep an eye out for details of the next session.