Crafting Excellence: A Deep Dive into Company Culture for Elite Teams (Janko Kotzé)

What happens to your company culture when the founder isn’t in the room? In Episode 81 of Solving the People Puzzle, we explore how Amazon Web Services (AWS) turns cultural intentions into everyday behaviours through practical, repeatable mechanisms. Think of culture as a garden: knowing what you want to grow is only the beginning. You also need an irrigation system that keeps it growing without depending on one person to water it every day. From hiring and feedback to innovation and leade...

AI is moving beyond chatbots and prompts — and 2026 could be the year it starts doing the work. In this episode of Solving the People Puzzle, Johan sits down with CTO Ewan to explore the shift from traditional AI and prompting toward agentic AI: systems that can understand a goal, take action, execute tasks, and work alongside humans. The conversation explores the opportunities and risks this shift creates for HR and talent acquisition, including AI bias, candidate fraud, automation, data pri...

What happens when you stop treating entry-level hiring as a tick-box compliance exercise and start using it to build South Africa's future executive pipeline? In this episode of Solving the People Puzzle, host sits down with Lesego Shelembe, Specialist Recruiter at Nedbank, to unpack how corporate South Africa can solve the youth unemployment crisis by giving hungry talent their first real break. Processing 35,000 applications for 650 spots in just 90 days isn't just a massive recruitment c...

Why did you choose Candidate A over Candidate B? 🤔 Can you actually defend your last hiring choice if an upset applicant calls you out publicly on social media? Welcome to Chapter 3 of Wamly, broadcasting live from our brand-new, tranquil offices! 🚀 In Episode 78 of Solving the People Puzzle—the ultimate business leadership podcast and human resources podcast—Fran drops a truth bomb that challenges standard talent acquisition trends in 2026. When a line manager resists digital hiring, is it...

Marko Stavrou, known across South Africa as the Gen Z Guy, is a dynamic young business leader. At 17, he became the youngest person accepted globally into Henley Business School. Today, aged 22, he is the founder of Genlink, an investor-backed consulting and insights firm focused on unlocking the potential of organisations' next-gen talent and customers. Over the past few years, Genlink has worked with the likes of Standard Bank, Nedbank, Universal Music, Walter Sisulu University, and many ot...