Top executives to meet in Nairobi peer forum

PAC Managing Partner Erick Ngala (left) with Dr Okey Okere, the VP of Africa Region for Hofstede Insights during a past engagement with business leaders in Nairobi. They will address the CEO's forum on Thursday. [File, Standard]

A peer-to-peer meeting of Kenya's top business executives will take place this week in Nairobi.

Participants, mainly chief executive officers (CEOs), will explore ways of navigating emerging challenges and capitalising on new opportunities in 2023.

The roundtable follows an appreciation by managers of the changing organisational cultures and how they can leverage culture to drive business performance.

The event will help leaders tackle pressing business challenges including putting culture at the centre of the corporate strategy, attracting and retaining top talent and leveraging leaders to help embed performance-driven cultures in organisations.

It also comes in the wake of studies that have shown that less than 15 per cent of local business leaders are confident that their organisational cultures will enable success.

Priority Activator Consulting (PAC), a human resources consulting firm, will host the CEOs' forum for private and public sector senior managers, who will network and reflect on their performance and the country's business outlook.

PAC Managing Partner Erick Ngala said that the Thursday event will be addressed by Egbert Schram, the Group CEO of Hofstede Insights, a global leader in strategy, human resources, finance, and marketing, with 150 associate partners in more than 60 countries.

"Our team has been working with CEOs and leaders in some of Africa's most successful organisations to recruit, align, and develop high-performing teams, as well as to transition corporate culture to maximise performance and make culture a true competitive advantage," said Ngala.

He said several executives from pharmaceutical, banking, construction, NGOs, academic institutions, insurance and other sectors had been enlisted for the one-day session at a Nairobi hotel.

Hofstede Insights operates through country offices and a partner model of delivery. With its Africa office in Lagos, it has country partnerships in Kenya, Ghana, Ethiopia and South Africa.

There will be a question and answer session moderated by Okey Okere, the vice president Africa region for Hofstede Insights, where business leaders will discuss what has worked and what has not in their journey to culture transformation.

The firm enables organisations to solve intercultural and organisational culture challenges by utilising its effective and proven culture diagnostic frameworks while PAC offers business advisory services in corporate strategy and planning.

Its catalogue includes HR advisory, culture consulting, change management, organizational design and development as well as research and market insights.

"We hold partnerships with renowned consulting and service brands such as Hofstede Insights, Mercer-Mettl, Cascade and Pervasent," said Ngala.

Headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, Hofstede Insights has been helping some of the world's largest organisations transform their organisational challenges into business success stories and translate academic research into decisive actions.