Ten MBA students are CEO for a Day

Leon Ayo

The initiative serves as an opportunity for the CEOs to gain valuable insights into the millennial generation and how businesses of the future will be shaped by this new generation of talent.

“Through the programme, we are learning that millennials are not motivated by money only but are interested in a job that offers more in terms of travel and training as examples,” says Leon Ayo, CEO of Odgers Berndtson Sub-Saharan Africa.

“We are therefore seeing a rise in the interim, the consultant and the fixed term contract. This is having an impact not only on the way organisations need to be structured but also the role and importance of company culture. Values are therefore critical in terms of the way organisations want to attract and retain millennial talent.”

The programme also allows students to gain first-hand experience in understanding not only what level of responsibility C-Suite executives hold but also how they create value for their organisations. A key lesson for the students is what it takes to be a CEO, such as having less technical skill and more around developing characteristics such as resilience, tenacity and how to get the most out of people. Many are surprised at how many of the CEOs come from similar backgrounds and this can be inspirational.

The programme puts students through a rigorous recruitment process, including online assessments and face-to-face interviews with consultants from the executive search firm. Students were also given feedback on their interview and presentation skills.

“We applied the same robust and in-depth recruitment process as we would normally employ when hiring C-Suite executives for the JSE’s top 40 listed companies,” says Ayo.

Experiences

Mel Brooks, the regional president of G4S Africa Holding spent his day with Ozayr Ballim, an MBA student at the University of Stellenbosch Business School. Brooks oversees 120,000 employees in 29 countries within the region including Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ballim says, “I was most impressed by the high-performance leadership values which Brooks demonstrated and, for me, this is what underpins his success in business. I learned that adopting leadership values such as inclusivity, democratic consultation and constructive conflict improves organisational performance, as the people you lead are valued.”

Odgers Berndtson first launched the initiative in Germany 12 years ago, subsequently rolling it out across offices in other countries including Scandinavia, Spain, Finland, Brazil, Belgium and Canada. Including the South African programme, almost 350 organisations and over 700 CEOs and students will have participated in the programme, generating a wealth of insight on the changing nature of leadership. The UK joined the programme in 2016.

For more information, go to http://ceox1day.co.za.