AGM with Konrad Reuss, MD of Standard & Poor’s

As a business leadership organisation, Accelerate Cape Town aims to facilitate senior level engagements, advocate on behalf of business and stimulate robust discussion to advance economic development. This year, our AGM will look the new programmatic approach that Accelerate Cape Town adopted in 2016 and highlight key projects that are part of this strategy.

Another key focus during 2016 has been the need for robust discussion between business and government regarding the state of our economy and the various programmes which resulted from greater Business and Government Collaboration. As part of  our Business Leadership programme, Accelerate Cape Town highlighted what was required to avoid an investment ratings downgrade earlier this year and while we achieved that in June, avoiding a ratings downgrade in December is absolutely key.

To understand what factors the rating agencies look at globally when rating a country, what the areas of concern are with regard to the upcoming sovereign rating and what South Africa and business could be doing better, we will be hearing from Konrad Reuss, Standard & Poor’s Managing Director & Regional Manager for Sub-Saharan Africa.

Speaker

Konrad Reuss
Managing Director & Regional Manager, Sub-Saharan Africa, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services

Konrad Reuss is a Managing Director at Standard & Poor’s. Based in Johannesburg/South Africa, he is the regional manager for South Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa. Before assuming his current role in 2007, Konrad was the deputy head of the sovereign and international public finance ratings group with global business responsibilities.

From 1998 to 2005, Konrad was head of the London-based EMEA sovereign ratings team with responsibility for credit ratings of sovereign governments, sovereign-supported issuers and multilateral lending institutions in Europe, Middle East and Africa. Before joining Standard & Poor’s in 1993, Konrad worked for seven years at Deutsche Bank AG, Frankfurt. Konrad Reuss holds an M.Sc. (Econ) degree from the University of Würzburg, Germany.

Note that our AGM is by invitation only.