Mark Sham | CEO & Founder
Suits and Sneakers

I am an energetic and passionate speaker, entrepreneur and strategist who revels in the idea of
changing the world. If you’ve ever met me or heard me speak before, you’ll know these aren’t
just things I’m saying for the sake of a bio.
I am the founder and CEO of Suits & Sneakers and the Impello Incubation Hub. I have been
sharing my thoughts as a speaker around South Africa since 2011, but never took the medium
as seriously as I should have until around 2015 which is also when I started Suits & Sneakers.
At the time, I could see how quickly the world was changing and I wanted to show people from
all walks of life how to use informal education to research the future and stay relevant instead
of becoming redundant in the process. In my opinion, the most precious resource of any
country is the collective intelligence of its people. If we are going to rise as a nation, South
Africa and its citizens must become learning machines.
This is why Suits & Sneakers is my absolute obsession. We help businesses around South Africa
to create more meaningful learning experiences in the workplace and in the process, we are
developing the university of the future. My ultimate aim is to develop this university ecosystem
to the point where I can eventually offer school leavers a FREE alternative that is more effective
than any university or any other cog in the formal education sector.
With this vision in mind, I started the Impello Incubation Hub because I believe the future of
education is a blend between face-to-face learning and digital learning. My goal is to open a
hundred of these spaces around South Africa with each of them acting as a university for future
learners of this country.
I have also added a few links that you may find of interest, which will give you a better
understanding;
https://youtu.be/6HKjITfqing - Suits & Sneakers Main Event 5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrNFt71u6ms - Suits & Sneakers Makro Partnership
https://youtu.be/lM9Rb175LCA - First ever Suits & Sneakers Event