In this talk, professional speaker Charlotte Kemp (former president of the Professional Speakers Association of Southern Africa and the Global Speakers Federation) shares insights from her travels in Southeast Asia and conversations with international colleagues. She explains how government policies shape speaking markets: South Africa’s skills development levy subsidises short‑form keynote speaking, whereas Mauritius and Malaysia’s government‑backed training programmes favour longer training sessions, limiting keynote opportunities. Kemp highlights the abundant talent and wisdom among African speakers, challenging the internalised notion that African voices are secondary to those from elsewhere. To amplify African expertise, she promotes the Voices Into Africa platform, detailing its Pan‑Africa Speaker Summit, networking events, and education programs, and invites partnerships to create global exposure. She also advises speakers to adapt their offerings to local market formats while preserving their unique style, emphasizing that understanding market structures enables speakers to meet client needs and express themselves effectively.
Chapters
I just had a very interesting conversation with a speaker colleague from Cameroon who is spending a bit of time in the United States. My name is Charlotte Kemp. I'm a professional speaker, past president of the Professional Speakers Association of Southern Africa, past president of the Global Speakers Federation, and Chief Relationship Officer for Voices into Africa and Red Jacket. And I live in Cape Town, but I'm currently spending a couple of months in Southeast Asia. I'm in Malaysia at the moment. We'll be going to Vietnam. We have some plans around going to Malaysia, uh, to the Philippines later on. And the reason that I'm here in Malaysia is probably the same reason why my friend and colleague, Oliven Shum, is in the United States. It's so that we can expand our understanding and insight and experience of other parts of the world and how speakers operate, the speaking world operates in other parts of the world as well. I'll give you one example of things that we've discovered as we have engaged internationally. In South Africa, there is a skills development levy. So when companies train their employees on certain government-approved programs, the government pays back part of this levy. Now, in South Africa, that happens. But in Mauritius and in Malaysia, that is such a good program from the government that the speaking world tends to rely quite heavily on training rather than speaking. And that means that people who see themselves as keynote speakers who can present in 45 minutes a really excellent, well-thought-out message in 45 minutes, they don't get the opportunities that a trainer would get who can deliver the same sort of content but over 4 hours. Neither one is better or worse than the other. It's just that a government program has sponsored the one format, so people and the industry and the marketplace rely more heavily on that. Now, if we don't understand that, it just means that certain people feel frustrated about not being able to express their expression of their career as a keynote speaker in a particular part of the world. But once you understand that, then we can find ways to work within that theme of a country or how that particular government does it and find ways to satisfy what the marketplace needs as well as ways to express ourselves in our own particular style. What Oliver in the US and what I have in my various travels around the world and in building a network of speakers around the world, what we've, what we discovered is this: we've got some really amazing speakers in Africa. We really do. We have incredible talent, incredible wisdom. But part of what Africa has been taught to think about themselves is that we are second-class citizens to other parts of the world, that clearly the insight and wisdom will be somewhere else in the world and we should sit up and listen to that. And that's what we're challenging because we need our voices to be heard. We need to share the wisdom that is in Africa with the rest of the world. When we suppress or deny or ignore certain voices, especially, you know, a billion people across the continent of 54 different countries, when we ignore that, we're all poorer for it. So we're not saying that Africa is better or more impressive than anywhere else. We're just saying Africa's got some wisdom that should be heard, and we'd love to engage with people around that. So if you are interested, then look at some of the projects we're running on Voices Into Africa. We've got the Pan-Africa Speaker Summit, we've got networking events, we've got education programs, and we're looking to partner with people. Both within Africa and out in order to get more exposure for our speakers and more opportunities to engage around the world. Because I think that's at the heart of what a professional speaker does is wrestle with content, whatever their particular theme is, and do a little bit of philosophy around that and then share that with audiences and with clients where we can add value. And We have some value to add, so we'd love to have those conversations with you.
