The chairman of the South African Real Estate Investment Trust (Reit) Association, Laurence Rapp, has accepted a challenge to consider what role this sector can play in ushering in new leadership.
Addressing the South African Reit Conference in Sandton in March, Dr Reuel Khoza, chairman, Aka Capital, said South African business had to consider its role in driving change in South Africa.
“We are as much cursed with a spell of leadership famine or blessed with the feast of leadership. The choice is ours. We can develop and unleash the talent that is all around, or allow it to wither on the vine and continue lamenting the paucity of leadership in SA,” says Khoza.
Khoza challenged South Africa’s business leaders to do what they could to challenge the current regime and to support a generation of new leaders. “Nobody is predetermined to be our leader in spite of everything. This requires an understanding that in the final analysis, the citizen is responsible for its own future. The crossroads South Africa faces demand resolutions,” he says.
Rapp says the Reit sector should take these words to heart. “We heard a business leader speak so frankly about the need for dramatic change and the role that business has to play in driving that change. We in the Reit sector need to consider our role.”
This article originally appeared in Neighbourhood, Sunday Times.
