Exceptional, though-provoking, energising: attendees and speakers rave about first-ever GC Forum GRC

General counsel of our modern and future eras are and have to be more than legal advisors - they are business strategists and business leaders with a legal edge, say several of the speakers and participants who attended the groundbreaking GC Forum | Governance, Risk & Compliance, held in Johannesburg on Wednesday.

Held at Four Seasons Hotel The Westcliff, and taking place alongside this week’s Biennial IBA African Regional Forum Conference, the GC Forum GRC was hosted by Africa Legal in partnership with leading legal data and intelligence platform Afriwise. 

The high-level, full-day event brought together leading figures from in-house and private legal practice, and marked a step-change in how African General Counsel engage with key forces shaping business today: geopolitical volatility, legal fragmentation, and rising demands for risk-conscious governance.

“The theme of the program, ‘Bridging the Gap - Navigating Business, Law and Geopolitics’ could not be more apt in the current climate,” says Oyinlola Adebayo. 

Adebayo, the Company Secretary-Assistant Vice President of Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria, was part of a panel of legal and business leaders discussing “Integrity Under Pressure: How GCs Navigate Ethical Dilemmas and Compliance Gaps”, moderated by Rebecca Thomson, Head of Investigations, Compliance and Ethics at Baker McKenzie South Africa.

Fellow panelist Mpumi Mazibuko, General Counsel - Africa Operating Unit for Coca-Cola Africa, says “It was a pleasure to engage both In-House Counsel and Attorneys in practice, on how lawyers can reinforce the philosophy of being ‘the moral compass’ for an enterprise, while still meeting business imperatives.”

Overall, the GC Forum GRC was “a masterclass in thought leadership, collaboration, and the evolving role of General Counsels in today’s complex landscape”, with great speakers, thought-provoking content, and all details from venue to networking being world class, says Mpho Chitapi, Head Legal; Group Tech at Nedbank. 

For Chitapi, key learnings included: 

• Ethical leadership and principled decision-making are the hallmarks of our profession — we are the custodians of this standard.
• The journey of a legal professional is never static: read, learn, relearn, and reinvent yourself continuously.
• GCs must remain alive to the geopolitical trends shaping our reality, anticipating risk and responding with agility.
• We are entering an era defined by the convergence of risk — data, legal, operational, ESG, and third-party risk are no longer siloed. 

Most of the attendees are now experiencing geopolitical and other risks on an everyday basis, so it’s how we respond that matters, and there’s still work to be done in many organisations, says Wendy Bampton, co-founder and COO of Africa Legal. 

Bampton worked for months alongside CEO Scott Cowan, Afriwise, and key sponsors to create a superb programme bringing together Africa’s most forward-thinking legal minds to deliver practical insights, peer exchange, and leadership dialogue. “We always focus on the depth of the content to create real robust conversations, and attendees really leaned into that which was exactly the outcome we hoped for. There were requests for this to become an annual event.”

Alongside topical expert panels, there were also illuminating quickfire sessions and fireside chat style conversations. Afriwise founder Steven De Backer delivered an engaging overview of their technology that resonated with the audience, bringing to life with practical examples the benefits of Africa-specific legal intelligence.

The GC Forum GRC agenda seemed crafted to provoke real discussion on the operational realities counsel face across Africa, says Nigel Maramba, Senior Legal Counsel at Unilever, who valued the candour and strategic thinking, from sharing war stories to debating future trends. “Every conversation felt grounded in lived experience, from geopolitics to regulatory shifts to the nuances of scaling business responsibly… The collaborative spirit in the room reminded me that while we operate in different markets, our challenges as in-house counsel are deeply interconnected.”

For event sponsor Beech Veltman, whose CEO Warren Beech discussed “Under Fire: Leading Through Crisis, Risk and Hard Calls” with Vedanta Group Base Metals CEO Christopher Griffith, and Afriwise’s Glenda Benson, who hosted an illuminating quickfire Q&A with four top legal and regulatory specialists from across Africa, the first-ever GC Forum GRC was an insightful, engaging, and impactful event. 

“It was pleasing to engage in powerful conversations around the evolving legal and compliance landscape across the continent,” says Nobert Phiri, a Partner at Muvingi & Mugadza Legal Practitioners, who was part of the quickfire panel. “This gathering brought together an exceptional, pan African audience of General Counsels, compliance leaders, and policy influencers [in] a clear sign of the continued growth and opportunity within Africa’s legal markets.”