Page 40 - CAO Annual Report 2023-24

CENTRAL APPLICATIONS OFFICE
PROFILE OF IRIS FYNN
Inspirational speaker
An inspirational speaker with a particular focus on Moral Leadership in the 21st century, Iris Fynn has been invited to speak at a number of high profile local and international engagements.
These include addressing the United Nations at the 55th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women in Africa Forum 2011 and being the keynote speaker at various events, including the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Women in Business Launch in Uganda. Iris is a Motor Industry of South Africa (MISA) Women of the Year Award recipient.
About Iris Fynn
Iris hails from a small rural village on the southern coast of KwaZulu– Natal and is the daughter of Morris Fynn, one of South Africa’s struggle veterans. Iris is a true South African example of how someone from grass roots level can achieve enormous success and recognition through sheer hard work and incredible passion.
A marketing and communications specialist with varied experience, ranging from tourism and FMCG, to motor retail, Iris believes she was born to be of service to others. Iris’s corporate experience includes heading up Marketing Communications for
Tourism KwaZulu-Natal, Unilever, MTN and more recently, her role as Group International Communications and Corporate Social Investment Manager for McCarthy Group, a wholly–owned subsidiary of the international Bidvest Group of Companies. During her tenure at McCarthy, she managed one of the most successful CSI projects in the country, the Rally to Read initiative. She counts her time running Rally to Read, under the leadership of Brand Pretorius, as being the most fulfilling project of her career to date. “One cannot work for a CEO like Brand Pretorius and not be forever changed for the better as a result. He is simply the most incredible human being I have ever met and serving under his leadership has taught me that leadership is simply about service,” she says fondly.
Iris was chosen by Tokyo Sexwale to be one of 16 candidates to appear on the reality TV series, The Apprentice SA, out of some 200 000 applicants. In 2009, she was named one of ‘Tomorrow’s Leaders’ by Anglo American and, more recently, was featured in a coffee table book, Burning Bright: Extraordinary Women of KwaZulu-Natal, which was later adapted into a documentary and launched at the United Nations in New York.
38 ANNUAL REPORT 2023/2024