Innovation is no longer a buzzword; it’s a business imperative. The Nedbank Innovation Conference returns for its 3rd year, bringing together a curated group of 60 industry leaders, entrepreneurs, and digital pioneers for a day of insight, inspiration, and connection.

Hosted at The Vineyard in Cape Town, this event showcases how digital transformation, AI-driven business models, and corporate venture capital are reshaping industries in South Africa.

Why innovation matters in business today

In a world defined by digital disruption, businesses must evolve or risk being left behind. From market research to smart infrastructure, innovation drives competitive advantage.

The conference explores how companies are leveraging technology to stay ahead, whether through AI in business, new funding models, or bold strategic pivots.

Unlike traditional conferences, the Nedbank Innovation Conference is intimate, curated, and deeply focused. It fosters meaningful dialogue and genuine connection, and features a bespoke guest list. The setting in Cape Town, home to thriving innovation hubs, adds to the energy, making it a must-attend for those shaping the future of business.

Innovation isn’t just for the private sector. Smart technologies are revolutionising public safety, from surveillance systems to predictive policing. This session highlights how smart city innovation is creating safer, more responsive urban environments, with Cape Town emerging as a leader in this space.

Why Nedbank CIB champions innovation

At Nedbank Corporate and Investment Banking (CIB), innovation is more than a strategy − it’s a mindset. By hosting this conference, Nedbank CIB reinforces its commitment to supporting clients through transformation, investing in future-forward solutions, and positioning itself as a catalyst for change in the South African business landscape.

This panel features businesses that have embraced change, sharing lessons learned, missteps made, and successes achieved. These stories offer practical insights into navigating transformation, especially amid uncertainty and rapid change.

Meet the speakers

This year’s lineup features a mix of digital mavericks and visionary entrepreneurs.

Abdullah Verachia, a globally respected strategist known for his work on innovation and disruption, will lead the charge. Alongside him, speakers from various sectors will share how they’ve embedded innovation into their DNA, turning challenges into opportunities and ideas into impact.

Pepe Marais: MC

Founding partner and Group Chief Creative Officer: Joe Public

Pepe Marais is one of South Africa’s thought leaders on personal and organisational purpose. His definition of success is to create an environment of harmony and joy, where the focus is on the well-being of people – growing them to achieve the highest levels of self-worth, honesty and excellence by nurturing ideas, dreams and trust.

Pepe is the founding partner and Group Chief Creative Officer of brand and communications group Joe Public and is currently ranked as the number one creative leader in the South African advertising industry.

He holds a doctoral degree in Business Management with a focus on Organisation Purpose and Conscious Leadership, and is a published author and thought leader on how purpose unlocks creativity. Pepe facilitates transformational leadership journeys for corporate executives, works with executive leadership teams to define business strategy based on corporate purpose, and is a passionate keynote speaker on purpose as a life strategy. His reason for being is to bring out the best in those around him.

Abdullah Verachia

Global Strategist and Adviser

Abdullah Verachia is a highly regarded and sought after global strategist and adviser known for his expertise in helping companies navigate complexity, disruption, and change. With significant expertise in strategy, innovation, and disruption, Abdullah facilitates numerous high-level strategy sessions and breakaways for companies and governments and is an authoritative global speaker on these matters.

He has served in senior executive and board roles, led teams that have crafted competitive strategies for some of the leading companies globally, lectured at some of the top business schools, and co-founded several disruptive companies.

Danny Saksenberg

Co-founder and Chief AI Officer of Emerge

Danny started his career as an actuary working at Southern Africa Actuarial Consultants and Deloitte. He soon realised that he wanted to work outside the actuarial profession, and so in 2002 he started exploring other analytics fields, including credit. He found machine learning and immediately became excited about the technology.

He has worked in machine learning ever since and is considered one of the foremost thinkers in the field. Danny has also started several entrepreneurial ventures, including Emerge, a specialist machine learning business. He has served as the Chair of AI and Analytics at the EDM Council and as a senior credit expert lecturer at the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management. Danny has also lectured on AI at Stanford, Yale, Singularity University, and many other leading educational institutions, and has been invited to join the faculty at Yale.

Lorne Hallendorff

Chief Communications Officer of Karri

Lorne Hallendorff is co-author of the business book The First Kudu: Building a Tech Startup in Africa, which has been featured on SABC’s Morning Live, eNCA, and the front page of the Cape Times. He is an experienced business leader currently building and operating innovative financial technology solutions at Karri.

He has prior experience in technology start-ups, as Chief Operations Officer of a property technology start-up, and in management consulting, having worked in telecoms, IT, mining, financial services, and agriculture across Africa.

Lorne has an honours degree in finance from the University of Cape Town (UCT), where he was president of the SRC. He is also a Fellow of the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation.

Lorne is featured in a chapter in Reflections of South African Student Leaders: 1994 to 2017 by Thierry Luescher, Denyse Webbstock, and Ntokozo Bhengu.

Steven Raucher

Co-founder and CEO of RapidDeploy

Steve is the co-founder and CEO of RapidDeploy, a company driven to achieve its mission of saving lives by reducing response times. Since the company was founded, Steve has been very active in the public safety community as an advocate for bringing next generation technology into 9-1-1, making it available to 9-1-1 centres of all sizes. Well known for his passion about cloud technology and its potential for 9-1-1, Steve regularly attends and speaks at public safety conferences on topics related to modernising 9-1-1 with cloud-native technology.

Peter Clark

Managing Partner REdimension Capital

Peter has built a distinguished career in property investment, spanning listed and direct real estate, property development, and finance. As the former Head of Property at Ninety One, he led multiple teams and managed diverse portfolios, driving investment strategies across South African and global property markets.

A CFA charter holder, Peter holds an honours degree in property from the University of Cape Town and a master’s degree from the University of Cambridge. He is an active industry leader, serving on the Africa Proptech Forum advisory board and the South African Property Owners’ Association Proptech sub-committee.

Barend (Koos) Jordaan

Executive Director: Master Drilling

Koos has worked at Master Drilling since 2001, holding various roles during his tenure, including that of engineering manager and technical director. Prior to this, he worked for Joy Mining Machinery, responsible for design and project engineering, and for Orsmond Aviation as a technician. As a technology and innovation specialist, Koos also holds a bachelor’s in international technology management from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

Connie Bloem

Co-founder and Managing Director: Mesh.trade

A former management consultant, Connie is committed to transforming financial markets through technology. With a background in industrial and financial engineering, she excels in design thinking and agile development. Connie’s vision is to provide widespread access to future financial markets. She brings expertise from roles at Accenture and Andile, where she contributed to treasury systems and digital banking apps.

Luisa Mazinter

Chief Growth Officer: Mesh.trade

Luisa is passionate about transforming real-world challenges into growth opportunities across every facet of the business. As Chief Growth Officer at Mesh.trade, she crafts integrated strategies that harness marketing, business development, customer experience, and strategic partnerships to drive sustainable success and global growth.

She previously achieved record-breaking customer acquisition growth as Chief Marketing Officer of TymeBank. She was adjunct faculty at GIBS for 10 years, is Chair Emeritus and board member of the MMA SA, and Judge Chair for the MMA Smarties Awards.

Arnold van Graan

Head: Research Nedbank CIB

Arnold van Graan is a chartered accountant and has 18 years of mining-related financial experience at various international investment banks. Arnold joined Nedbank in 2016 as an equity analyst, covering platinum and gold producers. Before joining Nedbank, he worked in equity research at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, the Royal Bank of Canada and Investec Securities. Arnold started his career with the Ernst & Young mining team in Johannesburg, with secondments to practices in Manchester and New York.

This annual business networking event provides a platform for robust discussions on navigating the challenges of rapid innovation, disruptive trends, and organisational transformation.

The conference is in its second year, and we aim to develop it into an annual calendar event that the industry looks forward to, which we will build on over time.

The event will take place on 5 September at The Forum Embassy Hill, Constantia, and expects to host 70delegates. The conference is exclusively by invitation only. Our speakers are digital mavericks and innovative entrepreneurs across numerous industries, with the esteemed Mike Stopforth as the keynote speaker. The conference also hosts speakers from Bash, Motus and Quro Medical.

Here are some talking points that were covered at the conference by speakers

1. Innovation DNA: Unpack a company’s innovation journey, strategic decision-making, and thought process when building a business.
   
   
2. Navigating disruptive waters: Exploring the transformative events that challenge and reshaped a companies trajectory.
   
   
3. Wisdom forged through experience: Reflecting on the invaluable lessons learnt along the way and how these insights serve as guideposts for future endeavours.
   
   
4. Unearthing opportunities: Delve into the art of trendspotting and the ability to discern emerging trends and seize them as strategic opportunities.
   
   
5. Balancing persistence and pragmatism: the delicate balance between tenacity and adaptability. When do we persist, and when do we gracefully pivot or let go?
   
   
6. Chasing competitors’ shadows: Discuss strategies for catching up with and surpassing competitors’ initiatives.
   
   
7. AI and cutting-edge systems: Explore the utilisation of technology, AI, and market-leading systems to drive efficiency, innovation, and competitive advantage.

Conference presentations and videos