Hosted by Conscious Companies and the Mail and Guardian, the summit has harnessed some of the world’s foremost thinkers on consciousness as voices of integrity, reasoned thinking and wisdom. It will be held at The Venue in Melrose Arch.

Besides Mohanji, who will travel from India, many other renowned global speaker have been confirmed. This includes Dr Jan Bellermann, founder of the Conscious Leadership Academy in Germany, and Japanese author Gunter Pauli and the United Kingdom-based Dr Paul Ward who is known as the “consciousness whisperer”.

Furthermore, organisers have announced Adam Craker, chief executive of IQbusiness and winner of the Conscious Companies Awards 2018, as the programme director for this year’s summit.

South African speakers include Professor Mervyn King, a former judge of the Supreme Court, Professor Bonang Mohale, chancellor of the University of the Free State, and Bruno Olierhoek, Nestlé South Africa’s chairperson and managing director for the East and Southern Africa regions.

“In an ideal world, there would be no need for a Conscious Leadership and Ethics Summit,” Conscious Companies founder Brenda Kali says.

“However, we do not live in an ideal world and leadership globally is looking rather bleak at the moment. Against the backdrop of staggering global headlines of chaos, crisis, war, confused anxieties and the pandemic, we are also caught up in the throes of paralytic inaction and the inexplicable lack of accountability at home.”

It says the soul-searching conversations from conscious thinkers provide an opportunity for leadership to shape the narrative and heed the call to create a more conscious and humane socio-economic and political environment.

Embedding conscious leadership
The outcome of the Conscious Leadership and Ethics Summit would be a report to President Cyril Ramaphosa to heed the call of transformation and appeal to him to embed conscious, ethical leadership in all sectors of government.

Kali adds, “The summit has garnered some of the world’s most brilliant minds to share their leadership strategies, experiences and insights on consciousness, ethics, morality and transformation in business and society to enable a shift in behaviour and embed ethical, conscious leadership.”

Other attending business leaders include Merrick Abel, CEO of Primeserv, Hoosain Karjieker CEO of the Mail and Guardian, Richard Firth, CEO of MIP Holdings, and Justin Apsey, general manager for Unilever South Africa.

Kali describes them as determined visionaries endowed with matchless energy, a sense of humour, keen imagination and common sense.

Olierhoek says, “Being a conscious leader is about self-awareness, actively finding ways to add value, to protect our planet, empower our communities, promote a good living and lead with exemplary business practices. These key pillars, when addressed consciously, build businesses that are in themselves [as with their leadership], self-aware, and inherently inclusive.”

Abel adds that he believes in the power of a purpose-driven, conscious organisation that empowers its people to make a difference in everything they do. For his company, conscious leadership is, in essence, responsible leadership and organisations can benefit hugely by embracing conscious leadership and making it a core component of their cultural and operational DNA.

“Despite having no control of whether the markets go up or down or that one is not in control of life’s challenges and circumstances, conscious leadership is a deeply rooted awareness of one’s actions and requires constant work, effort, focus, compassion and care as well as the courage to create disruption and bring about a different quality of being in the world.”