Strive Employee of the Year, 2016
A well deserved congratulations to Thando Nhlapo and Charles Lake on being awarded our Strive Employee of the Year for the Benefits and Consulting business, respectively. Read what they have to say about their great achievement and working at NMG.
Thando Nhlapo
As Marketing Assistant for Benefits, what does your job involve?
My role as Marketing Assistant for Benefits is to provide support to the business and drive internal and external marketing initiatives, all positioned to bring awareness to the NMG brand. I’m no stranger to working with agencies to create collateral and presentations, plan and distribute communications internally and via our website and LinkedIn, plus manage the many events we hold. I enjoy how diverse my role is.
You’ve seen some changes in marketing and the business in 2016. Can you elaborate on how you’ve repositioned marketing in the Benefits business and what we can look forward to in 2017?
We saw many changes to the business in 2016 and as a result, Marketing played a big role in ensuring each of these was communicated properly to our people and clients. We even saw great change within the Marketing team itself, and are working towards ensuring supporting the business is our top priority in 2017, followed by
increasing our external brand awareness.
What’s your proudest moment at NMG?
have many proud moments whilst working at NMG, however one that sticks out is the implementation of the NMG promise our people, our assets. This moment didn’t reflect solely on me, it reflected the values of NMG and the pride the company has for their greatest asset their people. I’m incredibly proud to work for a company that holds its people at the core of all it does.
If you could change jobs with anyone at NMG for one day, who would it be and why?
It would be great to experience working in one of our other businesses, such as iGO4. But I’d have to say that if I had the chance I’d swap roles for one day, it would be with Lerato Thupi, part of the HR Benefits team. Lerato contributes to the training, growth and development of our people (the core of our business). It’s an integral part of NMG Benefits.
Connect with Thando on LinkedIn.
Charles Lake
As a Consultant for the Strategy business, what does your job involve?
One of the great things about being a Consultant is the variety of work I generally spend my time between Excel modelling, interviewing, pack iteration and involvement in presentations. The UK Strategy team focuses on market and opportunity sizing – analysis of product strategy, market entry and due diligence for acquisitions – but thought leadership studies are of growing importance to us as well.
You’ve been described as exceptionally hard working, professional and very tenacious. Can you tell me about a project or time in 2016 in which these values were on show?
Thanks, to be honest that’s been my experience of NMG’s culture as a whole. It is hard to pick out a specific example, as every time work becomes a bit more pressured, there have been people willing to sacrifice their own time to help me.
What’s your proudest moment at NMG?
There are lots but to pick out a project, it would probably the Global Sovereign Asset Management Study we run for Invesco. We meet Chief Investment Officers of leading Sovereign Wealth Funds and Central Banks globally and compile a written report which is released publicly by Invesco. There is fantastic press coverage for the study (The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, etc.) and we have received positive feedback from senior people at institutions such as The World Bank. Knowing that the work we have done is getting that kind of attention makes me feel extremely proud.
If you could change jobs with anyone at NMG for one day, who would it be and why?
Tough to choose! It would be great to see how Benefits and other areas of the business work and I would love to be Partner for a day to see the perception of NMG ‘from the outside world’, but I think it would have to be with the SAS team. I was lucky enough to go their annual conference a couple of years ago and they are a great bunch: they work extremely hard and have to deal with masses of requests at once. I would be keen to see what their work is like on a daily basis and to learn how we can be more empathetic to them.
Connect with Charles on LinkedIn.