DGC TALENTWORKS: BUILDING THE DRC’S FUTURE THROUGH SKILLS, DIGNITY, AND HUMAN POTENTIAL

 At Expobeton RDC 2025, Denver Gounden, Managing Director of DGC TalentWorks, delivered a powerful message that cut to the heart of the DRC’s development agenda:

“True development won’t come from concrete and capital alone, but from skills, dignity, and the potential of its people.”

This message embodies the driving philosophy behind DGC TalentWorks, a division of the Dickinson Group of Companies, which is transforming Africa’s industrial landscape through an integrated model of workforce development, vocational training, and employment creation.

EMPOWERING AFRICA’S INDUSTRIAL FUTURE

DGC TalentWorks unites DGC Workforce Solutions and DGC Africa Skills into a single, technology-enabled ecosystem that connects industrial growth with human potential. Operating across the DRC, Zambia, Madagascar, and Zimbabwe, the company provides end-to-end solutions spanning workforce recruitment, training, certification, deployment, and performance optimisation.

Its mission is clear: to ensure that Africa’s youth, women, and diaspora are not left behind in the next wave of industrialisation, but are placed firmly at its centre.

Through partnerships with BTP & CMA, INPP, Enabel, UXi Artisan Development, and UNIDO, DGC TalentWorks is helping establish internationally aligned training and certification systems designed to professionalise the region’s workforce and uplift communities through opportunity.

TURNING COMPLIANCE INTO COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

As mining investment accelerates across Africa, operators face growing expectations to deliver local participation and long-term community benefit. For DGC TalentWorks, these are not obligations but opportunities to create shared value.

By aligning workforce development with national priorities for localisation, inclusion, and sustainable growth, the company helps its clients strengthen stakeholder confidence, demonstrate measurable social impact, and build the local capacity needed for enduring success.

Through DGC Workforce Solutions, the organisation deploys integrated project teams that combine international expertise with local capability, embedding skills transfer, technical empowerment, and accountability within every engagement. Meanwhile, DGC Africa Skills ensures that local talent is trained, certified, and accredited to meet international standards.

This collaborative approach is already delivering tangible results in the DRC. Working alongside government institutions, development partners, and leading mining operators, DGC TalentWorks is aligning technical trades with international competency benchmarks, reducing expatriate dependency while improving productivity, safety, and community development outcomes.

 FROM BRAIN DRAIN TO BRAIN GAIN

Denver’s Expobeton address emphasised the human dimension of Africa’s industrial future:

“No bridge, mine, or industrial corridor will stand the test of time without the skills to build, maintain, and sustain it.”

With a 10-year National Vocational Training and Accreditation Reform Programme now underway, DGC TalentWorks and its partners aim to modernise 70 training centres, accredit 490 trainers, and certify 100,000 artisans, 40% of them women. The initiative also aims to create pathways for diaspora reintegration, ensuring that skilled Congolese professionals abroad can return home with dignity and purpose.

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION IN WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT

As mining operations evolve through automation and digitalisation, DGC TalentWorks is preparing Africa’s workforce to adapt through a focus on continuous learning, versatility, and leadership alignment.

Through DGC Africa Skills, the company integrates technical and digital competencies into its vocational programmes, ensuring that artisans are not only proficient in their trades but also prepared for the future.

Recognising that project management must evolve beyond delivery schedules, DGC TalentWorks emphasises data-driven decision-making, adaptability, and people-centred leadership. As automation and new technologies transform industrial operations, the company focuses on leadership capable of aligning innovation with purpose and local context — ensuring that technology enhances, rather than replaces, human potential.

MEASURING REAL SOCIAL IMPACT

DGC TalentWorks measures social return on investment through three dimensions: Capability, Continuity, and Community.

• Capability measures how training and certification improve safety, quality, and operational performance.

• Continuity tracks the development of local leadership, retention, and the reintegration of diaspora professionals.

• Community reflects the wider human impact, balancing local employment with expatriate placements and empowering people long after projects are complete.

For DGC TalentWorks, true impact is not defined by metrics alone, but by communities that continue to grow through opportunity, inclusion, and skills.

A CALL TO BUILD WITH PURPOSE

As Denver concluded at Expobeton:

“Let’s build bridges of opportunity, not just bridges of concrete. Let’s ignite the engines of human potential, not just the engines of industry. Let’s invest in the people of the DRC, because they are the heartbeat of development.”

Through DGC TalentWorks, the Dickinson Group of Companies is doing just that — converting industrial ambition into human progress and ensuring the DRC’s industrial future is built not only in Africa, but by Africans.

 ABOUT DGC TALENTWORKS

DGC TalentWorks forms part of the Dickinson Group of Companies, a fifth-generation enterprise with over 115 years of industrial excellence across Africa.

Through DGC TalentWorks, the Group unites DGC Workforce Solutions and DGC Africa Skills to connect industrial growth with human potential, empowering industries, uplifting communities, and driving sustainable growth across the continent.

Empowering Africa’s Workforce. Driving Sustainable Growth. To explore partnership opportunities or learn more:

https://www.dgctalentworks.com/

Published DRC – October 2025