YLC-IDEAL Leadership Summit & Awards 2024 to Focus on Women Leadership

The Young Leaders Connect (YLC)-IDEAL Leadership Summit and Awards 2024 is scheduled to take place on the last Saturday of Women’s Month, 23 August 2024, with the tagline ‘Empowering the Future’. This prestigious event will be held on the 30th of August in at the Standard Bank Global Leadership Centre, Morningside- Johannsburg.

Similar to prior years, the IDEAL Leadership Summit will be kicked off in the morning with vigorous speaker sessions focusing on gender parity, leadership, and economic advancement. The event shall then proceed to an evening awards section where youth leaders who are most active in innovation and leadership shall be honored. The awards will honor trailblazers across six categories: It has IDEAL Authentic Leader, IDEAL Innovative Entrepreneur, IDEAL Propeller Entrepreneur, and IDEAL Lift Up in Business Leader, IDEAL Emerging Leader and the latest IDEAL Positive Impact Leader.

The summit will be an ideal space for meaningful discussions on topics like the #1000 Women Leadership Programme. This programme mainly focuses on providing women leaders with improved skills and is being implemented by the International Women’s Forum of South Africa (IWFSA) and DukeCE; it is believed that this programme will be one of the main topics of discussion. Joining the esteemed line-up of speakers is Nolitha Fakude PhD, President, IWFSA and Chairperson of Anglo American Management Board, South Africa. Ms. Fakude will also speak about leadership and gender diversity at Anglo American Platinum since she is also a non- executive director on the board of the firm.

 Other accomplished individuals involved are Thabelo Raphala, the Managing Director of MyDough, among others. This young woman, acknowledged as one of the promising young entrepreneurs in South Africa, will share her experience and goals for the further generations of women.

The YLC-IDEAL Pitching Competition was held on July 26 in Johannesburg as a warm-up to the main event. This was a private event where twelve businessmen and women pitched their business proposals to a panel of four distinguished judges comprising of Feziwe Mpaku, Karabo Motaung, Raphala, and Sibusiso Nkosi. The competition, which aimed at challenging the qualities of the emerging leaders of the South African business environment, made it possible for competitors to win fairly large sums of money. The overall champion received R100,000, and the remainder of the grand total of R180,000 was divided among the other contestants.

Zandile Mathabo Makhaya The co-chairperson for YLC was delighted about this year’s awards, especially with the new additional category and the emerging youthful and young women leaders. “We are excited once again to launch the YLC-IDEAL Leadership Summit and Awards, Sponsors and Partners, this year YLC-IDEAL Entrepreneurship Pitching Competition Awards Dinner will be more evaluating the entrepreneurship willing to have their businesses funded massively, hope of their dreams may be achieved this year” Makhaya said.

Lerato Phelane, the Co-chairperson of YLC also supported this by stressing on this year’s theme. ‘Empowering the Future’ which is one of the programmes implemented by this company is aimed at making sure the future generation and especially women produce good leaders and business persons in the country and according to the successes of the women who have come through the programme the future is indeed bright ; Phelane commented.

 YLC-IDEAL Leadership Summit and Awards slated for 2024 offers to be one of the biggest, culminating to honor and celebrate young, talented and highly achieving young women in South Africa while creating the avenue for future success and achievements.