Con Blignaut

Con is a Director since 1 May 2019.

He contributed to the venture capital when the company was founded in 2001 and remained involved in the background as an advisor. In his current role he will focus on giving momentum to current business development initiatives of the company before moving on to diversifying the customised solutions portfolio.

He has 28 years’ diverse experience in management, B2B marketing & sales and business development, mainly international and in the petrochemical industry. His first international business role was in a SA – USA Joint Venture located across four world regions where he ultimately was responsible for sales & marketing in the South American, African, South Asian and Middle Eastern markets.

Con spent seven years in Qatar where he was responsible for all the business functions of a country office, including HR, Corporate Affairs, Finance, Legal and Strategy & Business Intelligence. He served as a shareholder representative on two Board of Directors sub-committees of a Joint Venture incorporated in Qatar and as a non-executive director on the board of a company incorporated in the Isle of Man, a subsidiary of a group listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

Those he worked with acknowledged Con for his strategic and ideation approach to business and his “way with people” leadership style. He defines the highlights of his corporate career by the cross-cultural stakeholder relationships he developed and the engaged, ethical workplace cultures and lean, high-performance teams he co-created.

Countries he lived and/or worked: South Africa. Qatar. India. Pakistan. UK. Isle of Man. USA. China. UAE. Singapore. Saudi Arabia. Djibouti.

Experience: 29 years in management, B2B marketing & sales, business development, of which 21 years international.

Qualifications: B.Eng. (Mechanical). BA (Hons) in Business Management and Administration. MBA.

Board Member: Director (Commercial portfolio) of a non-profit company.

Certifications: Certified Director™ with the Institute of Directors of South Africa (IoDSA). Certified People Acuity Guide™ (CPAG) with People Acuity Inc.

Primary Strengths Contributions (according to StrengthsMultiplier^™): Visionary, Inventive, Studious, Reflective, Differentiator, Kinship, Solutionist.

Con is a keen reader and his interests extend beyond business topics to include international politics, military history, selected biographies and not enough fiction.  Whenever he gets to travel, he likes to capture the moment with his Canon and be adventurous on the menu, as long as it does not entail organs or entrails.  His favourite destinations are spread across Asia and the Middle East.