Blog post by Calvin Sanders, GMBA '20
CAP South Africa will take place during a critical moment in South African politics, as South Africans go to the polls for the 5th time since Nelson Mandela ended apartheid 25 years ago. The incumbent is Cyril Ramaphosa, a legacy member of the African National Congress (ANC) political party. The hot issue is Land Reform – an ANC proposal to redistribute agricultural land to South Africa’s black and colored populations. I encourage readers to look into the issue as it is a fascinating backdrop for the 18 members of the GWSB community who travel to South Africa to complete their CAP engagements.
I am Calvin Sanders, a rising 2nd year Global MBA fellow. Thank you for taking the time to read about my CAP experience. The 2019 CAP South Africa clients come from diverse backgrounds, as do the students working with them. Until now, four teams comprised of four students each have assessed, diagnosed, and solved a host of client challenges. The time spent on-site in Cape Town will help the CAP teams refine their recommendations and create practical implementation steps given the client’s capabilities. Here is an overview of the 2019 CAP South Africa clients, and their GWSB student consultants.
The first team is Jembi. Jembi is a non-profit whose mission is to improve global health by developing information systems, growing partnerships and building local capacity, with a focus on developing countries. Team Jembi is composed of Olivia Gant, Pravallika Yemba, Mike Bonfatto, and Dana Omair. These four are tasked with an organizational redesign mission; essentially, to help Jembi formalize their management processes to keep up with their growth over the last few years. This is a particularly important client engagement, as healthcare advances in Sub Saharan Africa can have potentially enormous benefits on the impacted populations.
Team two is VoiceMap. VoiceMap is a GPS guided audio tour company that enables visitors in over 150 cities to take walking tours of various attractions, told through the voice of a local inhabitant. Andy Bauder, Becky Xia, Juanita Abii, and I compose the VoiceMap student team. Our mission is to design a market entry strategy into Washington, D.C., so VoiceMap can expand the B2B side of its business in a mature market.
The third team is Sealand Gear. A forward-thinking company in the fashion industry, Sealand Gear uses upcycled materials to build backpacks, purses, and other accessories. Max Silverstein, Vedika Jajodia, Swarchaa Kataria, and Will Ronalter look to expand Sealand Gear’s geographic coverage into other developed markets.
The last team is RainFin. RainFin blurs the line between traditional financial institutions and modern peer to peer lending platforms. They want to bring financing access to deeper into the South African economy. Ramzi Soueid, Shehu Bello, Joe Kovacs and Tasorn Pornsikrul team up to generate alternative lending and collateral arrangements for businesses.
These four teams will spend the next two weeks working with clients during a charged era in South African politics. This dynamic experience – balancing consulting obligations, politics, and personal development – is what CAP is all about. I look forward to keeping you updated over the next two weeks!
