Building a winning health offering
The AfroCentric Leadership Conference 2025 took place in February, bringing together the Group’s leaders to discuss the progress achieved to date with regards to Vision 2030, priorities for 2025 as well as explore tools needed to drive meaningful change and growth within our company.
The conference gave the leadership team the opportunity to learn better about each other’s businesses and priorities in order to collaborate better around our strategy and the journey we are all on, to build a winning health offering.
Anton Gildenhuys, CEO: Sanlam Life and Savings, delivered the opening address on the first day, and set the tone with a compelling vision for 2030, emphasising the importance of our business in completing their fortress position, and once and for all closing off healthcare as an entry point to its clients.
Addressing the conference also, our Group CEO, Gerald Van Wyk, affirmed that our strategy is solid, but that’s half the battled won. We now need to focus on how to unpack it and how we’re going to show up, for all our clients and stakeholders. We will achieve this by adopting three imperatives, namely executing with discipline, protecting our business and taking care of our people. This translates to management leading with clarity, focus and a mindset that is aware of risk, while fostering a culture of accountability, experimentation, learning and compliance.
Gerald reiterated our bold ambition to be the leading healthcare provider in our market, delivering exceptional outcomes and experiences for our customers. With the backing of the largest non-banking financial services group, Sanlam, and their aligned strategic partners such as Fedhealth, we have a solid foundation for success.
Moreover, with a talented 5,000-strong workforce, we have the expertise, passion, and dedication required to drive our ambition forward. We have a right to win, and we’ll achieve this by living our values, driving innovation, and executing with discipline.
Building a value-integrated model for the business is imperative for our survival and success, with partners in it for the long haul.
“Expect a developing culture that encourages experimentation, a ruthless pursuit to deliver results and an unwavering commitment to liberate the best out of our people.” – AfroCentric Group CEO, Gerald Van Wyk
Some highlights from the robust engagements at the sessions include an exciting update of what we can look forward to this year, to drive operational excellence and ensure that we get the basics right.
Several awesome initiatives are in the pipeline in the Human Capital space. These include the Culture refresh, the revamp of the employee recognition programme, as well as the rollout of our values, to ensure alignment with Sanlam. Additionally, the re-alignment of our performance management process to Sanlam, has already been initiated. As part of our endeavour to enhance our Employee Value Proposition, we will amplify your employee experience via several programmes that will be rolled out.
From a technology point of view, the panel discussion, facilitated by Ashley Singh, our CIO: Health and Corporate, painted a great picture that demonstrates efforts of how we will create a future, business-led environment that drives increased speed, improved efficiency and enhanced flexibility. Top of the priority list includes establishing a foundation for innovation, leveraging advanced analytics and AI, while identifying opportunities to integrate and optimise data enablers across the AfroCentric Group and with Sanlam. Others include working with the business to enable delivery of the strategy leaning on industry trends, digital transformation, Sanlam integration and FutureFit Applications and Workforce.
Thirushen Pillay, Acting CEO: Pharma Cluster, provided an overview of how the pharmaceutical market has changed over the past ten years and the great opportunities that exist in the market, while Satish Antony, Executive Manager: Actuarial, gave an overview of Vision 2030 within the healthcare context.
Andrew Schwulst, CEO: Medscheme, led a panel discussion on Driving Clinical Innovation, laying out the foundation of how everything we do, including future innovation, will be reimagined through a value-based care lens. Ultimately, the approach to Managed Care is to move away from a transactional-based relationship to a more partnership-based model that is centred on patient care and clinical outcomes.
With this strategic direction in mind, we will shift our focus from cost containment to measured health improvement per unit of cost while aligning incentives across members, providers, and payers. We aim to also look into financial incentives that reward improved health outcomes such as reduced hospital admissions, improved chronic disease metrics and improved patient satisfaction and experience.
The Value-Based Care approach will ensure that we leverage data and digital tools to personalise interventions and optimise costs, which will lead to improved affordability and access, thereby making medical schemes more attractive.
Aklaaq Mahmood, Executive Director: AfroCentric Diversified Investments, led the panel discussion on the future of the Africa and International business and how they will support Vision 2030, in line with the national objectives of the respective markets within which we operate.
Sandile Mbele, Executive Director: Sanlam Health, also delivered a TedTalk on Sanlam’s Health offerings to corporates, to help reduce the healthcare burden in South Africa.
Additionally, external speakers who inspired and motivated our leaders included rocket scientist Siya Xuza, Zanele Njapha, ‘The UnLearning Lady,’ who is a distinguished international speaker and organisational transformation expert, as well as John Sanei, a futurist, facilitator, advisor, and strategist on the convergence of neuroscience, technology, and business strategy.
Looking to the Future
Despite continued headwinds, AfroCentric shows resilient execution against our strategic objectives and Gerald expressed his confidence in the organisation’s renewed sense of purpose and leadership’s determination to face challenges head-on.
