On Friday 12 February 2016, Cuan Chelin, Founder & Chief Executive of the Super-Brands Group of companies, spoke as the keynote speaker at the Women’s Property Network (WPN) Leadership Conference 2016 held at the Standard Bank Offices in Rosebank.
The conference was a real success, bringing together more than 100 key industry players in the property and related sectors (retail, construction, professional services etc) and provided an invaluable opportunity to share ideas. Additional speakers at this exciting event included Phil Bartram (VP at MSCI/IPD), Shaun Rozyn (GIBS) and Zola Ntwasa (ED of Jade Capital and winner of the WPN 2015 Entrepreneur Award).
Cuan shared his inspiring story on growing the Super-Brands Group of companies, which has over the years built up businesses in various sectors and having recently sold a business to listed group. One of his current ventures includes Toy Kingdom which aims at becoming Africa’s most loved toy retail brand and currently has a number of stores across South Africa, with a franchise store in Tanzania. Other businesses include Sportingbet, South Africa’s largest online sports book and Handicaps Network Africa which is a joint venture with the South African Golf Association.
Focussing on the concept of being a game changer, Cuan drew on the learnings he gained from his experiences as well as the concepts he has learned from various leadership mentors. A few of these were:
- It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish
- You just don’t give up
- Relationships are often not made or lost in one day
- Applying Steven Covey’s concept of Win-Win
- The idea of not panicking when things go wrong
“It was such a pleasure to have the opportunity to share my story at this conference. As the property sector looks for more entrepreneurs and innovation, I truly hope that some of what I have learned and shared here today will spur some ideas and thoughts from these brilliant candidates.”
