Bigen, a socio-economic development (SED) company driving socio-economic change through innovative, infrastructure development solutions, has been ranked number one in the Consulting Engineers sector of the 2019 Top 500: South Africa’s Best Managed Companies listings.
In the selection process, Bigen outperformed peers based on its sustained financial performance and sincere commitment to transformation through skills development, job creation, gender empowerment and other SED initiatives. Having attained second place in the same category last year, Bigen believes this year’s ranking reflects the impact of its skillfully steered growth trajectory towards entrenching its market positioning. With a revised capital structure that promotes transformation, inclusiveness and human-centric development to entrench relevance and accelerate growth, the Bigen Group has been re-rated from a Level 3 to a Level 1 BBBEE Contributor and achieved 51% black shareholding during the past financial year.
“This accolade is a much-appreciated honour,” comments Dr Snowy Khoza, Executive Chairwoman of Bigen, “particularly since it highlights our human-centric values embodied in our purpose of ‘doing good while doing business’. It further resonates with Bigen’s core vision of improving the quality of life to effect lasting economic change on the continent of Africa”.
The Top 500 research team identifies the top five companies – the crème de la crème of business – in each of 100 business sectors in South Africa annually by monitoring the corporate performance of thousands of large, growing and productive institutions that lead by virtue of their size and dynamism. The performance criteria cover financial performance, empowerment and policy and accreditation. Companies need to demonstrate commitment to human resource transformation goals including diversity at management level and share distribution; substantial CSI; written policies regarding employment equity, skills development, health and safety, HIV/AIDS and the environment; and a commitment to quality as evidenced by SABS-approved accreditations.
Bigen also received the Standard Bank Top Gender Empowered Company in Infrastructure Development Award in 2018 while its CEO, Anton Boshoff was honoured with the Standard Bank Top Male Driving Gender Empowerment Award during the same year.