{"id":840732,"date":"2025-10-23T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=840732"},"modified":"2025-10-23T08:09:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T06:09:19","slug":"business-talk-fedexs-leon-bruwer-explains-how-the-afcfta-will-transform-south-african-smes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/840732\/business-talk-fedexs-leon-bruwer-explains-how-the-afcfta-will-transform-south-african-smes\/","title":{"rendered":"Business Talk \u2013 FedEx\u2019s Leon Bruwer explains how the AfCFTA will transform South African SMEs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In this Business Talk with Michael Avery interview, Leon Bruwer discusses how the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) will offer new advantages to South African SMEs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bruwer is the managing\u00a0director Sales, Sub-Saharan Africa at FedEx, a role he has held since November 2024. Before holding this role, he worked as the Head of Key Accounts SA for Savino Del Bene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He is a veteran of the retail industry, having held multiple other notable roles at various companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Commercial Executive<\/strong> \u2013 Heneways Freight Services (Pty) Ltd.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Director Ocean Freight South Africa<\/strong> \u2013 DB Schenker<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Ocean Product and Century Accounts Manager SA<\/strong> \u2013 CEVA Logistics<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Sales Manager and National Commodities Manager<\/strong> \u2013 Safmarine<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Global Account Manager<\/strong> \u2013 BAX Global<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Branch Sales Manager<\/strong> \u2013 TNT<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Across all these roles, Bruwer has built a comprehensive portfolio of skills and knowledge, which he now uses to execute his duties as the Managing Director SSA at FedEx.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The interview<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In this Business Talk interview, Bruwer explains what the AfCFTA is and the key economic factors that make it a meaningful method of unlocking the continent&#8217;s full potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He outlines the success that AfCFTA has seen and the opportunities that South African SMEs could enjoy should it be instituted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bruwer then touches on how SMEs without dedicated export teams or regional networks maximise the value offered by the AfCFTA and avoid fraud and payment issues in an unfamiliar market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He concludes the interview by sharing the key actions he believes governments can take to enable a smooth implementation of the AfCFTA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can watch the interview with Leon Bruwer below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Business Talk \u2013 Leon Bruwer on unlocking trade and business opportunities across Africa\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EwZmP350-bk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Leon Bruwer is the Managing Director SSA at FedEx and boasts over three decades of experience in the retail space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":840733,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[15578,15933,23890],"class_list":["post-840732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-business-talk","tag-fedex","tag-leon-bruwer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=840732"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":840734,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840732\/revisions\/840734"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/840733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=840732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=840732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=840732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}