Turning point: a trip to Cape Town showed me our power, as managers, to inspire change

When Tony Stonebridge CMgr FCMI was offered the chance to visit Cape Town, South Africa, as part of his MBA at Aston University, he jumped at it. It was April 2022. He’d just completed two back-to-back management apprenticeships, and the trip promised to help him develop even further by exposing him to international business, economics and politics. 

As well as taking classes in Cape Town, his cohort were invited to apply their burgeoning skills to local start-ups, analysing their performance and presenting recommendations to the founders. 

Little did he know, he would return home from that week away with a whole new purpose. 

“It was like being winded”

“The trip touched my head, my heart and my soul,” says Tony, who works as a lead subject matter expert at Wickes, the home improvement retailer. “The impact was like being winded. No other experience will ever come close.”

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Tony’s Damascene moment came during a community day organised by Aston and its local partner, Stellenbosch University. Here, he was introduced to Michelle Korevaar, founder of a non-profit called ChangeMakersHub. He watched as Michelle demonstrated the ‘eco-brick’ concept, an initiative to repurpose plastic and use it to benefit the local community. But most importantly, this blueprint empowers individuals to contribute towards change in an easy to do way while directly addressing some of the most pressing environmental and social risks the world is facing.