Owen Skae, the incoming Director of the Rhodes Investec Business School has a wide and varied background in the private sector, consulting arena, academia and most recently an international organization, but his heart has always been in the university environment. Consequently, it was an easy decision for him to make when he saw the RIBS directorship advertised. He has been fortunate to travel to all seven continents and many countries but “Rhodes University is a very special place”.
Having spent six years as a student and junior lecturer in the then Department of Business Administration at Rhodes, it was a “great decision for my wife and I (she being an Old Rhodian herself) to bring our family to Grahamstown”. He believes that the Rhodes ethos is very powerful and Rhodes’ greatest strength lies in the network of friendships and relationships that the small University enables both staff and students to build.
“My predecessor, Professor Gavin Staude and I go back a long way. He was the supervisor of my MCom,” says Owen, who has also maintained contact with many of his Old Rhodian friends.
When asked why he believes he was chosen to lead the Business School in its next phase of development (it celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2009), he suggests that he “brings a good mix of skills”. He spent some “tough” years in the textile industry, in Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa. After that, he taught prospective CAs at the School of Accounting at the University of KwaZulu-Natal where he was an Associate Professor in Managerial Accounting and Finance. Most recently he worked for the International Trade Centre, (the joint agency of the United Nations and the World Trade Organization) in Geneva where he worked extensively in countries all over the world, advising at the highest level on priorities for addressing national competitiveness and ensuring effective public and private sector cooperation in developing export strategies for sustainable human development.
His skills set bodes well for RIBS which, whilst often seen as geographically isolated from the broader business world, has huge potential to form strategic partnerships with big business in the Eastern Cape and in South Africa as a whole to develop leadership and management skills that will assist in overcoming the social and economic challenges the region faces.
He makes the point that people don’t always understand the role of a Business School. “I will work hard with all of our stakeholders to ensure that Rhodes Investec Business School takes its commitment of ‘Leadership for Sustainability’ very seriously”. In his opinion, Business Schools serve an indispensable role in straddling business and academia. “Our role is to provide knowledge to our students and short course participants so they gain critical insights into the practical realties of leading and managing organizations, whether they be private or public sector. In that way, we hope to develop forward-thinking leaders and research that serves to advance management knowledge that is applicable and relevant to our African context. And most importantly, sustainable”.