On Thursday 12th June, Ken Costa spoke to more than 180 guests at the 13th annual ‘Bishop of Guildford’s Dinner for Lawyers.’
The event was hosted and chaired by the Bishop of Guildford, the Rt Revd Christopher Hill, at the Guildford Cathedral Refectory.
Ken spoke on the subject, ‘Winning at Work without Losing in Life.’
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Reliance calls on Ken Costa to broker £35bn MTN deal
The Times has reported that Ken Costa, has been appointed by Reliance Communications, the second largest Indian mobile company, to advise on its negotiations with MTN, Africa’s largest wireless group.
The two companies are locked in exclusive talks that could create a new colossus in emerging mobile markets with a market value of more than £35 billion. More.
Anil appoints Lazard man to lead on MTN talks
Reliance Communications has appointed a veteran London banker and one-time anti-apartheid activist to lead its team of advisers on talks with South Africa’s MTN that could create a giant Indo-African telecommunications group.
Ken Costa, chairman of international business at Lazard, will lead Reliance’s negotiations with MTN, the two companies being locked in exclusive talks that could create a company with a market value of more than $68.7 billion.
Now a well-known city banker, Costa in his youth was the leader of the students’ council at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, then a centre for anti-apartheid activism, and spoke about his passion for justice in a recent interview.
The current chairman of MTN is 56-year-old Cyril Ramaphosa, a veteran of South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle who resigned key positions in the government after losing the contest to be South African president to Thabo Mbeki in 1997.
Ramaphosa continues to be a member of the executive committee of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa. More.
Ken Costa has been invited by Business Matters to speak about ‘finding purpose at work.’
The event will be held at The Roxburghe Hotel, Edinburgh on the 25th September. For more information, click here.
Ken Costa addressed more than four hundred students, alumni, and friends of the Ivy League universities at the annual Ivy League Congress on ‘Faith and Action.’ Sponsored by the Christian Union, the event was held at the Yale Omni Hotel from the 11-13 April.
Ken spoke about how faith should lead to action, how his career had taken shape and he also gave some advice to those about to embark on careers and how to make decisions.
Matt Bennett, founder of the Christian Union, said, ‘Ken Costa was an incredible and wonderful blessing to us all! We loved having him!’
Another delegate said, ‘[Ken's] presentation challenged many students - their feedback was ecstatic. [The] message could not have been more aligned with the purpose of the weekend. Thanks for making the trip to Yale.’
Listen
Listen to the talk here.
Read the talk here.
The New York Times
‘Three years ago a group of evangelical Ivy League alumni formed the Christian Union, an organization intended to “reclaim the Ivy League for Christ,” according to its fund-raising materials, and to “shape the hearts and minds of many thousands who graduate from these schools and who become the elites in other American cultural institutions.”
Founder Matt Bennett says, The Christian Union’s immediate goal, was to recruit campus missionaries. “What is happening now is good,” Mr. Bennett said, “but it is like a finger in the dike of keeping back the flood of immorality.”
“Trends in the Ivy League today could shape the culture for decades to come,” he said. “So many leaders come out of these campuses. Seven of the nine Supreme Court justices are Ivy League grads; four of the seven Massachusetts Supreme Court justices; Christian ministry leaders; so many presidents, as you know; leaders of business - they are everywhere.”
He added, “If we are going to change the world, we have got, by God’s power, to see these campuses radically changed.”‘
Published May 2005, read more here.
Sunday 16th March 2008
Colin Mackay chats to Ken Costa, one-time anti-apartheid activist turned City investment banker and devout Christian, about whether there is space for God in the workplace. Listen here.
BBC Scotland’s ‘A Life in Question’ invites individuals from all walks of life to reflect on their experiences.
Ken spoke at HTB on Sunday 2nd March on ‘Connecting with the Vision.’ Listen here.
He was speaking on Moses and the subject of ‘what will you do with what God has given you?’ He referred to Exodus 4:2, where the Lord asks Moses, ‘what is that in your hand?’
The talk came the week after Nicky Gumbel, Vicar of HTB, had spoken on Vision Sunday, ‘It’s time to Accelerate.’ Listen here.
Ken Costa was interviewed live on Metro FM (96.4) by chat show host Criselda Kananda in Johannesburg on 28th February at 7pm.
The show focusses on healthy body, mind and spirit on every Wednesday and Thursday evening 19:00 to 21:00 targeting 5.2 million listeners.
He was asked questions about his book God at Work, recently published in South Africa, and how he reconciles life as an investment banker, completing billion dollar deals with his life as a Christian. He then received questions from listeners.
Criselda Kananda has been actively involved in the fight for the rights of both the HIV infected and HIV negative people. She served as a Member of the Board of Trustees at the National AIDS Counsel (SANEC) 2005-2006 and in 2006 represented South Africa in New York during the United Nations General Assembly Special Meeting on communicable diseases, commissioned by Mr Koffie Annan. Criselda has also received an award from the First Lady Mrs Zanele Mbeki for her contribution towards the up-liftment of young women in South Africa as an ambassador for the Young South African Women in Dialogue.
Ken Costa was in Johannesburg on 28-29th February speaking on the subject of God in the workplace at the ‘Radical Christianity’ conference hosted by Rhema Church. It was the first time in 40 years since Ken had publicly addressed an audience, commenting that such a multi-racial gathering would have been illegal during his days as a student leader at the University of Witwatersrand.
Ken Costa has been invited to speak at the Ivy League Congress on Faith and Action. The conference will be held at the Omni New Haven Hotel at Yale, April 11-13, 2008.
Also invited from the UK is Baroness (Caroline) Cox. The Emcee for the Congress will be Eric Metaxas, author of New York Times bestseller Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery.
The Ivy League Congress on Faith and Action 2008 is expected to be the largest gathering of Christian Ivy League students, staff, faculty, alumni, parents, and friends in history. The weekend is designed to increase people’s vision and ability to advance the kingdom of Christ in their vocations and society.
The Plenary sessions aim to motivate delegates to change the world for Jesus Christ and keep Christ Lord of all, with a realistic expression of the costs associated with being used of God to build His kingdom.
Some extracts from Lunch with the FT.
Ken Costa and I take in the pink marbled splendour of The Ritz Restaurant in London. The winter sun streams through the window behind us. In the distance, a pianist tinkles away at “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”. “So you bought this place?” I say. “My very good friends and clients did,” he says – his very good friends and investment banking clients being the Barclay twins, Sir David and Sir Frederick, who bought The Ritz in 1995. “I rather like supporting clients. I think it’s always useful, you know.”
…The restaurant is filling up now. Our starters are excellent. Costa keeps an eye on the new arrivals. Let us talk about your years as a student leader in South Africa, I say. “Ah, you jog me with nostalgia for those days,” he says. Costa was president of the students’ council at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, a hotbed of white student radicalism. “Being a young 20-year-old, I had a burning passion for justice, and the injustices of the apartheid system were horrible in every way, mostly because of the dehumanising effect – curiously, not only on the recipients but also on those who were meting it out. We, the students, became the vanguard of agitation against the government.”
They were exciting times, but frightening ones, too. “You’d hear knocks on the door from strange policemen.” Did that happen to him? “Yes.” Friends were locked up. One, Ahmed Timol, died after falling from a 10th floor window while under interrogation in Johannesburg’s notorious John Vorster Square. “There were some very brave and courageous people,” he says. His associates included Steve Biko, the black student leader, who also later died while in police detention. “He was the outstanding leader of our generation,” Costa says.
…Costa’s family, farmers of Lebanese origin, were not political. What turned him against apartheid? He boarded at an all-white Christian Brothers school in Pretoria. One day the students heard that a Chinese boy would be joining them, but he never turned up because the law did not allow it. “I was deeply offended by that,” he says. With this came the “realisation that we were an entirely privileged group of people and that we never had normal contact with black people”.
…Costa is, today, not just a Christian. He is chairman of Alpha International, an interdenominational programme that has spread around the world. More than 10 million people have attended Alpha’s relaxed meals and introductions to Christianity. What convinced him of Christianity’s rightness? He pauses to turn down a waiter’s offer of another drink. “Well, it was a case of being persuaded. Claims that were made by Jesus were, in fact, true.”
It is unusual in Britain to find people talking openly about religion. Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s press spokesman, said: “We don’t do God.” Blair himself, who recently became a Catholic, said he never discussed his faith while in office because people would have considered him a “nutter”. Costa insists this is changing. “There is a greater openness than ever before for people to discuss the issues of religion. We do do God. We talk about it.”
Costa last year wrote a book called God at Work, examining workplace issues such as ambition, disappointment and money from a Christian point of view. As he talks, he draws on business terms. The Bible is “the prospectus”, as in, “That’s what the prospectus sets out, from Genesis to Apocalypse.” City work puts family life under stress, particularly when you are in the middle of a bid, but “it’s the trend that matters” – in other words, you can give your family more time when the deal is done.
…Is it true that he has read the Financial Times and the Bible every morning for over 30 years? It is true, he says, adding: “The only question is: which comes first?” And which does come first? The FT? “I know.” He gives a naughty giggle. “Awful.”
God at Work is developing a course, which will look at some of the issues discussed in the book, for use in small groups. Please contact us if you're interested in receiving more information about this.
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God at Work has been featured in The Times, Radio 5 Live, the FT and Business Day.
