In This Issue

In 2024 nominal average per person income in the UAE was US$ 49,400, roughly eight times that of South Africa’s US$ 6,250. On global rankings for GDP per capita, the UAE is among the top 25 countries, while South Africa ranks around the 110th, indicating the degree to which the UAE is ahead in relative living standards.

Tomorrow’s leaders will still need wisdom. Wisdom still needs experience. And experience still needs time.

Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist is not a business book, yet its lessons resonate deeply in today’s workplaces. From fear-driven leadership to purpose-led performance, the story offers powerful insights for employers navigating trust, control and growth in an evolving world of work.

Read our exclusive cover story titled AI and the apprentice – a future of leaders without experience and wisdom? by Nokwethu Khojane, Director and CEO, GoSkillsCafe Recruitment, plus a host of other topical management articles written by professionals, consultants and academics.

South Africa stands at a crossroads. We are a nation of extraordinary potential, weighed down by entrenched poverty, youth unemployment, and climate vulnerability. For decades, Corporate Social Investment (CSI) has been part of our development landscape, often perceived as a peripheral act of charity. Increasingly, however, there is recognition that social investment be repositioned as a lever for long-term growth and resilience.

There is a massive disconnect that fundamentally exists within African business education today. The classic MBA was built for markets driven by rough equilibrium and modest change. Yet Africa’s growth and expansion are occurring amid persistent turbulence, enduring imbalances, intersecting intricate systems, and a collective drive for home-grown intellectual and technological power. An innovative African MBA must disrupt the culture of business schools, shifting from mimicking non-African models to inventing frameworks that speak to the nature of markets and economies across the continent.

The publication of the King V Code on Corporate Governance for South Africa 2025 (‘the Code’) marks more than just an update - it signals a profound philosophical shift. This new Code is engineered to restore and solidify stakeholder trust by providing verifiable assurance that companies are led with integrity and are effectively managed. It is a powerful move designed to drive transparent, long-term governance impacts and fundamentally end the era of "tick-box" compliance.

Consider this scenario. You have invested ten years into building your business. It has supported your lifestyle, paid salaries, funded personal expenses and allowed you to draw dividends. Your accountant has helped you minimise tax by reducing reported profit and keeping the balance sheet light. At the time, it felt efficient and responsible. Then you decide it is time to sell, and suddenly the numbers that helped you save money now work against you.

Austrian economists argue that capital is more than just money, it is a living process in which private individuals set aside present consumption, conserve resources, and pour those resources into ventures they believe will yield increase later. That choice demands patience, sound judgment and - above all - ownership.

Most companies hide behind the warm fiction of being “a family.” Netflix didn’t. It called itself a team - and built a $300 billion powerhouse on that single, uncomfortable truth. Few workplace cultures are as controversial or as misunderstood, yet none are as clear about the price of greatness: average performance earns a generous severance package; excellence earns radical trust and total freedom.