A fifteen year track record

FutureLead comprises a group of dedicated and experienced senior professionals providing a wide range of innovative, sustainable management solutions. Since its inception in 1996, our firm has developed a reputation for consistently delivering a comprehensive range of management consulting services, working in both the private and public sectors. Our firm comprises a board of directors, a body of principals, and a wider group of dedicated associates. The firm has formal linkages/associations with:

• Hlatshwayo Du Plessis van der Merwe Attorneys, a firm which has taken up corporate membership of FutureLead
• Deloitte Namibia, with which FutureLead works on an associate basis for consulting services in Namibia.

In addition, the firm has established relationships with an extensive network of subcontractors (used where additional specialist skills are required).

Key differentiators

• Our senior calibre team, combining multi-disciplinary expertise with extensive experience across a wide range of business sectors.
• Our hands-on approach, whereby our senior resources work directly on projects, rather than extensively gearing up with junior resources.
• Our practical ability to work together with our clients, from problem analysis and solution development through to practical implementation.
• Our clients’ participation and involvement are key principles that we apply to all our projects, to ensure both empowerment and proprietary commitment of stakeholders to effective implementation.

Vision

We are inspired by a vision of being respected as a firm of senior professionals providing world-class services in strategy and organisational transformation. We partner with clients in the private and public sectors to assist in crafting winning strategies, to achieve breakthroughs in the performance of their organisations and to unlock value.

Values

Our firm continues to be led by the following core values:

• Client service first – excellent, flexible, professional service;
• A focus on creating and adding value;
• Honouring clients’ need for independence and objectivity;
• Maintaining strict integrity, and matching words with deeds;
• Teamwork – combining internal and client capabilities for the best results;
• Maintaining a global perspective – our practices, standards and networks will continue to reflect a global orientation.

Founding principles

Our business model remains founded on the following principles:

• Providing a comprehensive range of senior management consulting services extending from strategy to active implementation assistance;
• Executing assignments, big and small, in ongoing client relationships, instead of focusing on six figure assignments only;
• Working closely with our clients, involving them in the decision-making process and building capacity as well as readiness for action;
• Our senior level principals working directly with clients instead of relying on extensive gearing via junior resources;
• Maintaining our flexible structure and capacity to resource large projects while remaining lean on internal structure, facilitating fee economy.

Our BEE status

FutureLead is a majority black-owned firm, with 52% of our equity in the hands of Black Africans, and a further 24% in the hands of Indian citizens, bringing our total BEE ownership to 76%. We embraced the concept of Black Economic Empowerment long before it became a national imperative, because we believed it was the right thing to do.

One of the keys to the ultimate success of South Africa is undoubtedly the achievement of effective economic empowerment through society and the business sector. For effective economic empowerment to take place, linkages between the disadvantaged and resources must be created and supported. Accordingly, FutureLead strives to undertake the majority of its assignments on a “network” basis, drawing in historically disadvantaged firms and individuals into its project teams.

In addition to what we have been able to learn in the process, these associations have led to empowerment through participation in our consortia as well as in training and development initiatives, through which meaningful skills transfer has taken place. Such associations have led to ongoing business and working relationships of a developmental nature.

Our Africa reach

FutureLead has extensive experience in essential requirements for strengthening development and service delivery throughout Africa. We have experience and asociations with firms in Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana, Namibia and Mozambique with a primary focus on:

• Higher Education (Institutional strategy, organisational & performance improvement, management & information technology, change management)
• Transport (Roads authority capacity development, transport infrastructure planning, establishing local government Public Transport functions)
• Agriculture (Agribusiness, emerging farmer development, agricultural Research and Development, Farmer Association governance)
• Financial services (Development finance, financial regulatory frameworks, process re-engineering)
• Health (Health systems and service providers)
• Infrastructure Planning & Management (Facilities planning & management, water supply management, local government service delivery)
• State Owned Enterprises (Policy, governance, performance management, remuneration)