Nigel Thurlow previously served as the first-ever Chief of Agile at Toyota, where he created the World Agility Forum award-winning “Scrum the Toyota Way” and co-created The Flow System, a holistic FLOW-based approach to delivering customer-first value built on a foundation of The Toyota Production System. Throughout his career, Thurlow has gained an enviable recognition as a leading expert in Lean and Agile methods, tools, techniques, and approaches. He specializes in developing effective organizational designs and operating models for organizations to embrace both Lean and Agile concepts. By leveraging knowledge from various sources, Thurlow helps optimize organizations to enact successful, long-lasting transformational strategies in applying Lean thinking, Agile techniques, and Scrum – while combining complexity thinking, distributive leadership, and team science, represented by a triple helix structure known as the DNA of Organizations.

Imran is a seasoned Telco professional with 25 years of experience in Vodacom and a Charted Accountant by profession.
He has been KZN’s Managing Executive since 2021 having lead teams in Cape Town, Limpopo, and KZN prior. He has vast experience in Sales, Connectivity and Customer service
strategies across different segments and Market types. His passion is Coverage and Internet access and for rural communities with a strong proponent for ‘digitisation for all’ and
believes that technology is the key to accelerate economic and social transformation.

Rodney leads the KZN Team that drives sales operations and initiatives to grow Vodacom Business’ overall revenue in the Region. He is also the custodian for developing channels, implementing segment strategies, and delivering on the company’s business plan. Rodney has over 12 years of experience in Sales and Account management and has specialised in leading the Mining and Production sub-vertical at Vodacom Business. Prior to joining Vodacom, Rodney occupied key positions in companies such as BP, Accenture, and Novo Nordisk. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from UNISA, a Master of Business Administration from ALBA Business School (Greece), as well as a Master in Strategic Marketing from Wits Business School. Rodney is also an accomplished runner and has completed the Comrades Marathon this year.

Comfort Hlatswayo is an analytical and influential leader who believes in people being the custodians of solutions. He has 17 years’ of experience in the Automotive (OEM), FMCG (Production & Supply Chain), Lean Consultanting and Engineering & Metal industries. He has worked for Lear Corporation, Bosal, Bosch, Nestle, Reckitt Benckiser, Colgate & KAEFER.
He is a subject matter expert for Lean Manufacturing Tools, Strategy Deployment and is a Change Management expert. He studied Industrial Engineering, Green Belt training and Project Management and completed a Lean Practitioner certification programme in Germany, Bremen in 2022. Lastly, He is an author, speaker & solutions coach.

Neil Lees is a General Manager at Ramsay Engineering who is responsible for day to day operations. Neil has been with Ramsay Engineering since 2014 where he has developed through the ranks. He comes from a strong Quality background where he led the Ramsay Engineering Quality department for 3 years before moving into a Production management position and recently into the General Manager role. Neil uses his experience to continuously develop, implement and drive systems to meet and exceed the customers' expectations.

Khavitha is the Toyota Head of Lean Management at TWIMS and adjunct faculty at GIBS. She is experienced leader with almost 20 years of both local and international experience within continuous improvement, operations excellence and lean transformation, hereby ensuring client value and improved results within business. She has obtained a B. Pharm, an MBA and currently is a PHD student with a focus on the intersection of Lean Leadership & Psychological Safety.

Strong professional experience across various sectors & industries such as health, pharmaceuticals, oil & gas, logistics, academia & consulting organizations. A leader defined, by collaboration, empowerment, decisiveness & results.

Flavius Dumitrescu hails from Romania. He is the Quality Manager for Defy SA, and is actively involved with TPM, lean manufacturing and 6 sigma implementation at Defy.

Ryan Giles is a passionate and experienced leader in the field of commodity business improvement. He currently leads LeapFrog International, a firm that helps commodity businesses in southern Africa and beyond overcome their biggest challenges and seize new opportunities.

Ryan has a deep understanding of the technical, business, and strategic aspects of the commodity industry needing to be sustainable. He holds a master’s degree in engineering, an MBA from Hult International Business School in the USA, has studied strategy at Harvard, digital transformation at MIT and is a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt.

Prior to LeapFrog, Ryan was the Managing Director of the supply chain improvement specialists, Crickmay, and has had various key roles including at startups Forward Finance and Agnovate. He has worked with a wide range of commodity businesses, including RCL Foods, Rotran/Eskom, Illovo, and the World Bank, and has done this across numerous African countries so understands some of the idiosyncrasies.

Ryan is obsessive about helping commodity businesses succeed. He is a trusted advisor to his clients and helps them to develop and implement innovative solutions to their biggest challenges. He is also a strong advocate for leadership and the process of improvement.

Lucrecia Benjamin has a continuous learning mindset and passion for driving real change in the business world. As a registered Agile Coach, Agile Trainer, Certified Scrum Master, Certified Product Owner, Certified Safe Senior Scrum Master and Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, she is deeply invested in solving business problems and building true capability in organisational teams through hybrid training and coaching approaches.

Lucrecia’s career has focused on customer experience, process improvements, process optimisation and continuous improvement across several industries such as healthcare (Discovery Health), financial and auditing (Ernst & Young), FMCG (South African Breweries), and more recently the insurance industry (Sanlam). She completed her post grad studies in Business Management at Henley Business School, holds a MCom in Business Management specialising in Strategy from the University of Johannesburg and is also an Associate member of the Professional Editors Guild of South Africa.

Renowned Political Economy Analyst and Director of the Political Futures Consultancy Daniel Silke will deliver the Keynote address entitled: “The Day of Reckoning”, seamlessly weaving Global, African, and South African political and economic trends into insights and providing invaluable strategic foresight.