Biography
Michael Reddy
CEO of Furntech – South Africa.
Michael Reddy is the Chief Executive Officer of the Furntech Group that includes The Furniture Technology Centre that specializes in vocational training for the furniture and allied products industries and The Furniture Technology Centre Trust that focuses on business incubation for start-ups in the furniture manufacturing and design sectors.
He has over 25 years of experience in vocational skills development and over 20 years of experience in business incubation. Michael has 10 years of experience in competitive strategy and cluster development.
During this period, Mr. Reddy has been involved in the vocational training of over 10 000 individuals and in the establishment of approximately 400 SME’s through the business incubation programme.
As part of his professional activity, Mr. Reddy is the past Chairperson of the Southern African Business Technology Incubation Association the African Incubation Network.
He has been actively involved in the incubation sector in Southern Africa and has coordinated the establishment of the first furniture cluster South Africa.
Mr. Reddy is regularly invited to talk in international forums on the Furntech Model and has presented papers at the American and Canadian Incubation conferences.
As an incubation expert, he also collaborated with international organizations like the World Bank and UNIDO.
Mr. Reddy holds a BCom from the University of Western Cape (South Africa) and is busy completing his dissertation for his MCom.
Mr Reddy has received a number of international and local accolades and awards for his work in business incubation.