Justin Apsey
Justin Apsey is the Vice President - Africa Transformation at Unilever. He joined Unilever in Customer Development via the Management Trainee program in January 2000. Over the years he occupied various roles across the business units in Customer Development and Marketing, including a 3 year expatriation to Australia. In early 2012, Apsey took up the role as Vice President of Homecare on the Unilever South Africa Board. In February 2016, Justin moved to Nairobi, Kenya as Managing Director for East Africa and the Emerging Markets, responsible for transforming the cluster in service of driving Africa’s accelerated growth agenda. While in East Africa, Justin founded and led some of the region’ milestone strategic partnership initiatives driven through employee purpose in action under the Bright Future Fund program, promoting circular plastic economy, youth skills empowerment, women entrepreneurship and community livelihoods. In January 2021, after completing a four-year tenure as Managing Director, Justin started his current role as Vice President - Africa Transformation at Unilever, as part of the Executive Leadership Team and moved to South Africa where he is currently based. Prior to joining Unilever Justin worked at Ogilvy in Client Service and Strategy. Ogilvy is one of Unilever’s key advertising agencies across various brands and is part of the WPP group. Justin Holds a Bachelor of Business Science degree, with honours in Marketing from the University of Cape Town. He is married with three children. He is very passionate about Africa and seeing it succeed. His mantra is to lead in creating a brighter future for all. When not working, Justin enjoys the outdoors, running and staying healthy.
Monday, 8 March 2021 Day 1
Purposeful Partnerships
Hosted by Amref Health Africa
Advancing Africa’s health agenda requires breaking down silos and adopting a whole-of-society approach. As we work to advance Universal Health Coverage (UHC), particularly in the context of COVID-19, governments, the private sector, civil society and all other stakeholders will have a responsibility and a role to play. Partnerships must be fostered across sectors and geographies to leverage the knowledge, skills, expertise and resources of diverse players. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has tested health systems, disrupted economies and transformed the global health landscape – in light of this, it is imperative that health partnerships are flexible, dynamic and adaptable to shifting circumstances. This session will explore the potential of forging strategic, transparent, mutually beneficial and innovative partnerships to help catalyze progress towards shared health targets – as well as the value of engaging new and unconventional partners to tackle global health issues, including partners from outside the health sector. In particular, this session will make the case for multi-sectoral collaborations that have emerged or adapted during the COVID-19 pandemic, to respond to immediate needs while also focusing on sustainability and long-term goals. Speakers will highlight how non-traditional partnerships can engage new audiences to promote change, how sectors outside of health and development can contribute to advancing Africa’s health agenda, and how flexibility and innovation are key to driving impact. This session will also highlight recommendations from successful, purpose-driven partnerships for effective collaboration to advance Africa’s health agenda. The conversation on “Purposeful Partnerships” presents an opportunity to celebrate innovative and adaptable partnerships, discuss how to scale these up to reach wider populations, and identify new areas of potential impact and collaboration, to deliver on our shared goal of health for all.