Spencer Stuart and the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) have collaborated on a landmark study of CEOs in South Africa to better understand the qualities that typify successful leaders, the backgrounds from which future leaders emerge and the unique challenges that face chief executives in South Africa.
Through interviews with the CEOs of 32 leading organizations in South Africa we trace the evolution of leadership, from its embryonic beginnings in childhood and adolescence through the different stages of a developing career to the crucial transformation of an operational mindset into a strategic one. Combined with our own experience analyzing and identifying the best leaders around the world and across the full range of industries, we examine the fundamentals of becoming a leader and succeeding in the role.
At a 2013 event hosted by Spencer Stuart and GIBS, Tom Boardman, former CEO of Nedbank Group, and Nicky Newton-King, CEO of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, spoke about their own routes to the top. Both CEOs contributed their views and experiences to the report CEO Route to the Top: The South Africa Experience.