The Innovators with Tom Kennedy

John Sanei - (@JohnSanei) is a leading innovation specialist, best selling author, global keynote speaker, facilitator, coach and entrepreneur. In addition to that long list of acknowledgments he now has the honor of being the first South African to be accepted into the Singularity University faculty, a huge achievement in and of itself. In this episode we chat about a wide array of subjects including John's origin story that saw him start working at a young age to buy the things he wanted....

Magda Wierzycka, CEO of Sygnia - (@Magda_Wierzycka) is the founder of Sygnia group. She is among South Africa’s richest women having built her wealth from scratch after moving to South Africa - an amazing story in and of itself. She has most recently been in the spotlight for shining a light on corrupt corporates who have aided and abetted the Gupta and Zuma families in their state capture strategy. This is an amazingly insightful story that covers many aspects of running a large corporate...

Jonathan Shapiro aka Zapiro (@Zapiro) is a world renowned South African cartoonist whose works have resulted in awards, exhibits, lawsuits and debate internationally. In this episode, we discuss the Jonathan’s time as a young South African growing up during the oppressive time of apartheid, how he fought against the oppression, while maintaining a love of cartooning. Jonathan discusses his creative process in a hugely insightful way for creatives and non-creatives needing to operate at a...

The Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (@ZeitzMOCAA), opens at the V&A Waterfront this weekend and will be the biggest showcase of African art in the world. In this special episode, I got to visit the museum and have an in-depth discussion with the executive director and chief curator Mark Coetzee and assistant curator for photography Gcotyelwa Mashiqa. It's a discussion that covers the importance of Art in Africa as well as taking back the narrative African art has to tell. I hope you...

Professor Timothy David Noakes (@ProfTimNoakes) is a South African scientist and an emeritus professor in the Division of Exercise Science and Sports Medicine at the University of Cape Town. He has run more than 70 marathons and ultramarathons and is the author of several books on exercise and diet. He is known for his support of a low-carbohydrate, high-fat (LCHF) diet, as set out in his best-selling book The Real Meal Revolution. In this episode, we discuss the professor's journey, his...

Styli Charalambous (@DailyMaverick) is the CEO and publisher of DailyMaverick.com. In early June Scorpio, the Daily Maverick’s newly launched investigative unit, and amaBhungane, the independent investigative non-profit, began publishing stories from a much, much wider trove: a few hundred gigabytes of information containing between 100,000 and 200,000 unique e-mails and a host of other documents. That became known as the #GuptaLeaks. In this episode, I sit back down with Styli and find out...

Styli Charalambous (@dailymaverick) is the CEO and publisher of DailyMaverick.com. Having co-founded the digital news publishing house in 2009, he has overseen the commercial growth of Daily Maverick ever since. Styli is responsible for all things non-editorial and, in his own words, he believes he must have been a terrible person in a previous life to be given this challenge. In this episode, we cover the early days of Daily Maverick and its perilous journey to becoming a leading...

Nic Haralambous (@NicHarry) is the founder and CEO of style company NicHarry.com. Nic has had a colorful history and his career includes learnings garnered from at least ten failed startups over the past 12 years. He also has plenty of successes under his belt: he was the CEO and co-founder of Motribe, the mobile community platform, before the company was successfully acquired by Mxit in 2012 and has previously worked or consulted to many well-known businesses such as the Vodacom, Mail &...