Pieter Faling, executive director of Eskom, the national electricity supply company of South Africa, will speak on "Business Leadership in the Midst of Change" at Samford University Tuesday, May 4, at 10 a.m. in Brooks Hall Auditorium. The public is invited.

Faling, an Eskom executive since 1976, has been a leader during the time the country has gone from a society of apartheid repression to a national community of shared freedom.

Eskom, the world's fourth largest utility company, supplies 60 percent of the electricity for the African continent.

Most recently, Faling created innovative customer-focused teams resulting in a major change serving the South African electricity market. This has been done through values-based leadership to empower both black and white employees while moving through an Affirmative Action process.

According to Eskom, focusing on the customer rather than on technological achievements has resulted in a 40 percent reduction in capital expenditure and a 30 percent improvement in service reliability.

Faling is the first speaker in Samford's A. Gerow Hodges Lecture Series. The new series is designed to bring outstanding business leaders from the U.S. and abroad to the campus to talk and meet with Samford students.

The series honors Dr. Hodges, longtime Birmingham insurance executive and member of the Samford Board of Trustees, which he has served as chairman.