Inspiration — and a little bit of magic
It’s rare in the social whirl to leave an event feeling as though you’ve witnessed a special kind of magic. But that’s what happened when I attended the 20th Absa Jewish Achiever Awards.
These awards celebrate the business titans and icons, scientists and sporting stars “who inspire us, and encourage us”, as awards chairperson Howard Sackstein put it.
Arriving at Sandton Convention Centre, where the event was held last Saturday evening, the first person I meet is someone undoubtedly inspiring — cosmetics queen Reeva Forman, who greets me with a kiss as I walk into the lobby.
On our right, I spot Corruption Watch head David Lewis, who was chortling that I described him as hubby to Terry Kurgan, this year’s Alan Paton Award winner, in The A-Listers column on the Sunday Times Literary Awards last week.
David and Terry are chatting to a couple of people including a woman in a striking Oscar de la Renta silk shift who looks vaguely familiar.
Turns out she’s Dren Nupen, who runs the voting facilitation outfit Elexions Agency.
“I got you Cyril,” explains the woman whose company counted those votes at the ANC’s 2017 elective Conference.
Um, yes, and Jacob Zuma as well, I point out.
Into the venue, and seated towards the front of the stage is Sir Mick Davis, who up until mid-July was the CEO of the UK’s Conservative Party.
You left just before Boris Johnson took over, I point out to the SAborn politician whose CV includes being Eskom’s youngest CFO (back when it was actually powerful) and heading mining behemoth Xstrata. “It wasn’t prescient. I was encouraged to leave,” he explains.
On to the awards helmed by John Vlismas, and Sir Mick takes the Capricorn Capital-sponsored
Lifetime Achievement Award while David is handed the Humanitarian Award. Among the other winners, Adrian Gore is named Business Icon while Edna Freinkel, who describes herself as “87 going on 17” wins in the women in leadership category.
But what of that magical moment which left me moved long after the awards were over? That was when famed maestro Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic for over 40 years who was given the night’s Special and Extraordinary Award, put the Johannesburg Youth Orchestra through their paces on stage as they played Beethoven’s Fifth. The sound was enchanting, but the magic was listening as he explained that like a good leader, a conductor’s duty is to empower others by “awakening possibility”.