Don't Miss Out! Leadership, Tech and Career Conversation with Yolanda Cuba

In a little more than a week, we’ll be sitting around our metaphorical fireside and chatting to Yolanda Cuba (CA) SA, the Group Regional Vice President - Southern and East Africa at MTN. The joy of these conversations lies in the opportunity that participants have to engage the leader that is our guest, creating a dynamic and engaging conversation.

According to Gartner, despite the challenging economic conditions, spending on IT will see an 8% increase to 5.1 trillion dollars in 2024. This spend is expected to focus on organisations’ investment in cloud, cybersecurity, digital transformation and AI, with some of these areas seeing double digit growth in spend. Researchers have also seen a marked increase in concerns about AI Security. This make it clear that despite an excess of 90% of Leadership Teams at the helm of listed organisations having drastically increased their technology budgets since the early 2010s, balancing strategic considerations is key when leveraging technology to develop and implement a business strategy aimed at responsibly and safely unlocking growth.

Make sure you join us for this conversation with Yolanda where we’ll be talking about leveraging new technologies in business strategy to unlock growth opportunities; balancing the opportunity new technologies bring - especially AI - with responsibility and safety as well as how geographies that didn’t benefit as much from the digital revolution of the past years might reposition themselves to win more of the market in the coming years.

Join us for the Leadership conversation titled, Unlocking Growth Through Tech: Leveraging New Technologies for Business Strategy in the Age of Digital & AI on 25 April 2024 (19:00 PM SAST | 19:00 PM CET | 13:00 PM EDT)

About Yolanda Cuba

At MTN, Yolanda looks after Southern and East Africa. On behalf of the largest mobile network operator on the continent (ranked 7th in the world). She oversees the strategic, commercial and operational success of the countries that form part of her region. Yolanda is a strategy and vision driven leader that can be counted amongst the first to recognise and openly speak about the centrality of technology in business strategy and growth. A trailblazer, she:

• is playing a leadership role in rolling-out 5G on the African continent;

• Pushed for and realized key digital transformation milestones, exemplified by her leadership role in moving MTN from a mainly telecoms focused business to a connectivity and platform business;

• Introduced and made a success of the Ayoba Super-App; and

• Has repeatedly broken the glass ceiling, including being one of the youngest CEOs to herald a company listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

Yolanda is passionate about driving change on the African continent. She does this by expanding connectivity as well as leveraging commerce, technology and education to positively impact the socio-economic conditions faced by people on the continent and in the diaspora. In this way, she lives her passion of expanding our capacity for local and global impact, helping Africa become the next economic power house. In addition to the impactful work that she does as part of the roles described above, Yolanda is the founder of the Cuba Mtyi Foundation, Brighter Lives Africa as well as The Mentorship Boardroom.

She has held several roles where she successfully balanced achieving commercial results and driving social impact in South Africa and in the rest of Africa. These include:

• Group Chief Digital and FinTech Officer at MTN;

• Group Chief Officer: Strategy, Mergers and Acquisitions at Vodacom;

• CEO of Telecel - Vodafone Ghana;

• Executive Director: Strategy and Business Support at South African Breweries; and

• Group CEO at Mvelaphanda Group.

Yolanda is a Chartered Accountant. She holds a Master of Commerce in Finance and Financial Management Services from the University of Pretoria; a Bachelor of Honors, Accounting from the University of KwaZulu-Natal as well as several qualifications and certifications from Havard University, INSEAD, Havard Business School and the University of Cape Town, amongst others.

I had the pleasure of engaging with Yolanda for the first time when we were both at South African Breweries many years ago. Her energy, openness, sharp business acumen and the ease with which she engaged across all levels drew me in. Her willingness to share of herself and her wisdom has continued to impress me over the years as exemplified by the vision and insights she shared on a conversation we had in 2020.

I am delighted to invite you to engage with her brilliance at the Inno Yolo Leadership Conversation with Yolanda Cuba on Thursday, 25 April at 19:00 SAST / CET and 13:00 EDT.

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