13:00 - 14:00 CET
Brand Finance will be in Davos on Monday, 20th January. Join us for an engaging panel discussion, hosted in partnership with Eastrise Group, as we explore how managing a nation’s perceptions is essential for both governments and businesses to succeed on the international stage. Identifying image strengths and weaknesses as well as understanding what global audiences value the most enables nations to present a coherent and appealing narrative that supports their international endeavors. The stronger the nation brand, the greater the nation's ability to attract investments, market products and services, invite talent, and promote tourism, paving the way to stronger economic growth.
This panel will explore how nations from across Central and Eastern Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa are leveraging nation branding to strengthen the positioning of their emerging economies and to reimagine their own paths to growth.
Konrad leads Brand Finance’s place branding and soft power practice. He liaises with clients, directs consulting projects, and is responsible for the creation and promotion of the annual Global Soft Power Index, Nation Brands, and City Index studies.
Konrad has extensive experience in advising clients in the fields of place branding and public diplomacy. Before joining Brand Finance, he worked at the Polish Embassy in London where he developed and delivered successful marketing communications campaigns as well as media relations programmes of official engagements by the president, prime minister, government ministers, and the ambassador.
In his role at Brand Finance, Konrad has advised a variety of place branding organisations, including the GREAT Britain and Northern Ireland Campaign, New Zealand Story, and Cape Town Tourism.
Before moving on to grow the place branding practice, Konrad was the Communications Director of Brand Finance and Managing Director of Brand Finance’s PR agency – Brand Dialogue for 5 years. He has a proven track record in executing integrated communications strategies, having been responsible for publishing nearly 100 industry and country reports on the world’s most valuable brands on an annual basis.
Konrad has qualified with the Professional PR Diploma from the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR). He studied European Studies MA at King’s College London and the Humboldt University in Berlin, and International Relations with Political Science BA at the University of Birmingham.
Thebe Ikalafeng is a Hall of Fame global African branding authority and THE leading advocate for a brand-led African agenda recognized as one of the 100 Most Influential Africans.
A trailblazing marketer, since being awarded a Marquette University American Marketing Association for marketing excellence upon graduation in 1992 in the United States, he has made a sustained, distinguished and consequential contribution to branding and in reframing the African narrative for over 30 years. He is the founder BLG, a multi-disciplinary advisory group at the intersection of strategy, creativity and intellectual property law; the founder of the seminal non-profit Brand Africa movement for a brand-led African agenda and the ‘Brand Africa 100: Africa’s Best Brands’ initiative which is widely referenced as the definitive barometer of branding in Africa.
He has received Lifetime Achievement awards by Financial Mail AdFocus and the Public Relations Institute of Southern Africa.
A champion of African travel and tourism, he has been to every country in Africa and every continent in the world from Cape to Cairo and the Arctic in Greenland to Antarctica; trekked the rare silverback gorillas on the Virunga mountains in Rwanda and Uganda; summitted Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. Sinai, trekked the 116km long King Moshoeshoe II Walk in Lesotho, rode the historic 52 hour TAZARA train that links Tanzania and Zambia, skydived in Swakopmund, Namibia; and jumped the 216m high Bloukrans Bridge bunjee in South Africa, among his many breath-taking travels and adventures globally.
He was born and lives in Africa and educated in the USA, Italy and South Africa. He holds BSc. MBA and LLM (Intellectual Property Law) degrees. A consummate contemporary pan-African, “Thebe is Africa,” (TedxGhana) and ‘foremost branding authority in Africa,’ (African Business).