East Africa Business Council endorses Africa’s first ever cross cultural summit for CEOs
The East Africa Business Council, the region’s umbrella body for the business community, has endorsed the premier summit in Africa targeting CEOs, Managing Directors and heads of public institutions in East Africa.
The Summit, dubbed the Intercultural Agility Summit and slated for March24 and 25 at Kenya’s Mara Serena Safari Lodge seeks to converge CEOs, managing directors and key decision makers in East Africa to among others discuss and find solutions to skill set gaps in companies operating in a culturally diverse setting.
The Council that has representation across the five East African countries with membership spanning from private sector associations, government agencies, individual corporate and private sector apex bodies says the summit is timely as the movement of labour across East Africa reaches unprecedented levels. This,even as international companies set up shop in the region which has seen an influx of workforce from diverse cultures.
“This summit is pivotal for our members and that is why we have supported it. Being the first summit of its kind in the region, we feel that our members stand to gain a lot at a time when the region and the world has become a global village, and how we relate with each other in the workplace determines the overall growth of the companies. It matters then that we approach this from a point of information,” said Lilian Awinja the Executive Director at EABC.
Facilitated by seasoned cross cultural expert and founder of Clever Culture Communication, Sheriff Aligbeh, the summit’s approachwill provide a balance of structured input and discussion of case studies, critical incidents and scenarios relevant to participants’ own particular contexts. The summit is a follow up of similar successful ones that have been held in Europe and Asia.
“We are proud and honoured to be working with the East African Business Community on this summit. At a time when businesses in East Africa are transcending boundaries and the region becomes one seamless entity, this summit couldn’t have come at a better time,” said Lex Lindeman, the co-organizer of the summit and Managing partner at HR Boosters, a training and management culture consultancy company in Africa.
Key among the topics to be explored in the summit include why modern day executives need intercultural skills, Culture clashes in the workplace and the way towards an effective resolution, the perceived nexus between culture, training and performance and personal experiences by different heads on dealing with different cultures in the workplace.
“By bringing together business heads who have operated, worked and learned in different geographies, and those who are leading teams from different cultural backgrounds, we hope to stimulate discussion on diversity dynamics in multicultural workplaces as well as cross-cultural interactions. We will explore how these approaches can foster a rich working environment and embracing diversity as an advantage for a 21st century CEO,” said Erick Ngala, a co-organizer of the summit and Managing partners at Priority Activator Consulting, a consortium of specialists who offer human capital, management advisory services and training and development.
www.cleverculturecommunication.com
