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16th September 2017Press Release: BEE Novation’s Inclusion in #MyGrowthFund Business Accelerator
For immediate release
September 2017
National business consultancy to be groomed by international business dynamo
Consultancy BEE Novation has earned a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to join the business incubation Top40 Programme. Created by business mogul Vusi Thembekwayo, it will nurture 40 high-growth potential SMMEs through funding, incubation, skills development and enterprise development. Thembekwayo is the youngest CEO of a JSE-listed company, which has added to his reputation as a respected businessman and public speaker.
BEE Novation, founded by Lee du Preez, is one of a handful of Transformation and BEE consultancies that assist a range of clients, including JSE-listed companies, better understand and comply with B-BBEE, Employment Equity and Skills Development. The consultancy was interested in Thembekwayo’s global business experience to refine its own approach to solving multi-national corporates’ transformation-related problems.
‘We cover and go “beyond BEE” because transformation is a broad, politically-loaded and far-reaching socio-economic concept that, despite looking different from BEE in other countries, still speaks to those places’ issues. Global news headlines are echoing one another for the same reasons,’ du Preez explained. ‘We treat transformation as more than a one-size-fits-all box-ticking activity. This holistic approach takes a diverse team. I’m an aviator who engineers corporate solutions with a business management consultant, a political analyst, and an economist, among others. We look at clients’ transformational needs and strategies’ impact on their bottom lines from a variety of angles.’
BEE Novation’s foray into international waters follows du Preez’s experience as a 2015 Mandela-Washington Fellow through the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI), a flagship programme founded during former US President Obama’s administration to invest in the next generation of African leaders. ‘I’ve seen what’s over the horizon, but my business has only started catching up. With Vusi behind it and the entrance criteria being so gruelling, I am certain MyGrowthFund will equip mine and other businesses compete and contribute on a global scale.’
The 18-month incubation Programme selects 40 from about 3000 applicants from across South Africa. It exposes the chosen entrepreneurs to networking and supply-chain opportunities. Speaking further about the growth hurdles faced by small business, Thembekwayo observes they often die at the growth phase or within a year into operation. The Programme aims to catapult them past this stage into prosperity.
Ends.
Released on behalf of BEE Novation. For more information contact +27(0)60 000 BEE1 (2331).
He charts out the socio-economic ramifications of how we move through these three areas by writing political commentary and making vlogs (“video blogs”).
Some of his posts get half a million global reads in less than a week; other pieces get featured on Daily Maverick, Rand Daily Mail and other publications, attracting interviews on eNCA, PowerFM and similar media channels. He seemed an experimental fit for BEE Novation, and he has a book about to hit a shelf near you.
His views on how day-to-day business and political events affect the transformation and BEE landscapes will be available on the BEE Novation website.
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