Jayshree Naidoo is a prominent figure in the fields of innovation and entrepreneurship, serving as the CEO of YIEDI. Her company, YIEDI, is dedicated to innovation and strategy consulting, incubator design and management, entrepreneurship, supplier development, and digital and e-learning solutions. Her outstanding contributions have earned her recognition, including being named one of Fast Company SA’s most creative people in business for her dedication to “Putting Entrepreneurs First.”
In addition to her Fast Company accolade, Jayshree has been honored as an Inspiring 50 South Africa Winner for Women in STEM. She has also been acknowledged as one of the Top 500 African Doers by Tropics Magazine. Her career has encompassed leadership roles at notable organizations in South Africa, including the Development Bank of Southern Africa, Discovery, ABSA, and Internet Solutions. She previously served as the CEO of Feenix, a crowdfunding platform for students, and held board positions at JASA (Junior Achievement South Africa), SAINe (The Southern African Innovation Network), and NACI (The National Advisory Council on Innovation). She notably led the Standard Bank Incubator and played a pivotal role in its expansion to Mozambique and Ghana.
Jayshree is a sought-after professional speaker, sharing her expertise at numerous public and corporate conferences, both locally and internationally. Her insights have been featured in prominent magazines such as CEO Magazine, SA Innovator, Destiny, and Fast Company. She has also contributed to the Innovation Journal and is a guest lecturer at several prestigious South African universities, covering topics ranging from innovation and incubation to strategy and digital disruption. Her influence extends to the global stage, as she was recognized as one of the Top 25 Global FinTech Influencers.
Jayshree’s educational background includes an MBA, CAIB (SA), and honors in e-commerce and IT. With a wealth of local and international experience across various sectors, including technology, manufacturing, health insurance, finance, development finance, and education, she continues to be a driving force in fostering innovation and entrepreneurship in South Africa. Jayshree Naidoo has made significant contributions as a TEDx speaker and was featured as a thought leader in the Innovation SA Handbook, alongside other industry luminaries like Adrian Gore, for her enduring impact on South Africa’s innovation landscape.
Below are highlights of the interview:
As the CEO of YIEDI, what is your vision for the firm’s growth and success?
We want to create programs that are at the center of our clients strategic growth focus areas as well as programs that have a meaningful impact on the growth trajectories of the businesses on any of our programs. Our success lies in creating sustainable businesses and ensuring our clients receive a quality pipeline of supplier-ready businesses. We would like to work with more multinationals and profile some of our alumni for local and international opportunities.
How do you lead and inspire your team to align with the firm’s goals and deliver exceptional services to clients?
We have a very flat structure. All of our team members, including program managers, facilitators, trainers, and mentors, have a shared vision and align with the goals of our company. We believe in autonomous leadership, and we also give our team members the opportunity to share in the revenue of programs they help co-design or land for the business. This model has seen two resources in the past move from a facilitator role to a business partner role, which allows them to share in the revenue.
What sets YIEDI apart from your competitors?
Our program is delivered by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs. We do not deliver any programs through trained facilitators. All of our facilitators and mentors are technical business experts who are business owners in the field that they represent. We do not take equity in any of the businesses that we work with, as we believe that this distorts the development focus, which is a key pillar of our model. We have a diverse pool of facilitators and mentors, which allows us to ensure we offer customized mentoring and development to suit the life stage of the business and its owner. Our development programs focus on the founder of the business and improving their skills, as well as the development of business practices and processes. We also offer a one-on-one gap analysis for very entrepreneurial entrepreneurs on a sponsored program, which gives us an in-depth understanding of the skills and technical gaps that exist for the founder and the operational and technical gaps that exist for the business. This report allows us to shape the programs for the business at an individual level as well as influence the content of the overall program. YIEDI was recently selected as a partner for IBM Skills Build. One of only 40 globally. This partnership allows us to create customized learning paths for any startup on any of our programs, which addresses the digital skills gap that exists for many founders as well as their teams. This is a free resource that every one of our businesses and alumni receives.
What core values do you emphasize within YIEDI, and how do they influence the firm’s culture and decision-making processes?
Our core values center around applying creativity and innovation to everything we do, focusing on being impact-driven and adding value to our clients and the businesses or individuals we develop, and delivering programs with independence by focusing on the core pillars of access development, access to markets, and access to resources.
How do you approach business development to expand the firm’s client base and reach new markets?
We believe in a model of collaboration. We work with business experts as facilitators and program managers. These skilled experts and thought leaders attract additional business through their social media posts and networks. They are then able to share in the revenue and shape any new programs that are delivered.
What steps do you take to nurture the skills and expertise of your team members?
All our team members are allowed to access any training or development program we offer at no cost; they are also able to access any masterclasses or archived content on our YouTube channel.
How do you believe community involvement enhances the firm’s reputation and impact?
We believe in adding value to previously disadvantaged communities, and as such, we have recently launched two programs funded by the YIEDI Foundation, a non-profit arm of YIEDI. The programs we created are the WomX_ZA Program and a Youth Rapid Accelerator. The WomX program is currently accelerating over 150 businesses through a structured online accelerator delivered by female business experts, and the Rapid Youth Accelerator is assisting over 100 youth, the youngest of whom is 12 years old, with a customized learning path for digital skills as well as entrepreneurial content.
What are some of the key challenges you have faced in leading the firm, and how did you address them?
We work remotely, and I am based in a different province, away from many of our key resources. Although personal contact and face-to-face engagements are challenging, we all learned to navigate this as a challenge during COVID. We now use online meeting platforms to hold team meetings and planning sessions, and 60% of all of our content is also delivered online and through online learning platforms that we have procured to deliver content.
How do you plan to position the firm to adapt to changes and continue delivering exceptional services?
We plan on launching a platform solution in the next year to create access to market, access to development, and access to resources opportunities for all businesses that we have developed and provide opportunities for our clients to leverage the platform to access businesses for their supply chain requirements, as well as opportunities for other corporations to source products and services or to improve their innovation stack.
Please visit: http://yiedi.co.za/
