I am an independent Business Consultant with an interest and expertise at an executive level in Marketing, Leadership and Organisational Performance. Through the different companies where I have worked over the past 30 years, I have gained experience in Marketing, Sales, Strategy, HR and Training, as well as General Management. I am able to consult on all aspects of Marketing (Brand, Sponsorship, CSI, Product and Retail), with a specific interest in Challenger Brands; those companies and brands who believe in themselves and have what it takes to shake things up to the benefit of the consumer. On Leadership, I am particularly interested in Positive Leadership and how abundance, being civil, decent and kind, and showing respect can move people and companies forward.

Due to changing business requirements at Cell C, I broadened my professional focus in 2018 to an executive role in strategy, that included working on a range of strategic and high-level projects. These included work in cross-functional teams to examine the current nature and business of Cell C and to explore possible future positioning scenarios, diversification and differentiation strategy options, integrated reports etc.

For 6 years, I led a highly talented team that was charged with the entire marketing function at Cell C, a South African Cellular Network Operator (Carrier), and also worked very closely with the advertising agency, FCB, and media company, MediaShop. Collectively, we covered the following areas of marketing: 1. Brand (conceived and produced highly visible and thought-provoking work that encouraged consumers to consider and change to Cell C through emotional and rational cues).2. Sponsorships (enjoyed the halo effect by associating with some high-profile teams, events and individuals – Cell C Sharks Rugby, Cell C Nelson Mandela Bay 7s Rugby, Miss South Africa etc).3. Product (marketed a suite of products in both entertaining and informative ways e.g. SupaCharge, MegaBonus, Pinnacle Contracts etc.).4. Retail (had ongoing, aggressive, relevant and visible retails offers across all media formats).5. Digital (engaged with consumers across our numerous digital platforms - Web, Facebook, Twitter etc).Over that period, I controlled one of the biggest marketing budgets in South Africa and along with my team, we increased Cell C's brand value to its highest level of $986 million (BrandZ, 2018), making it the 16th most valuable brand in SA. The brand equity and enterprise value also increased with Cell C being SA's fastest-growing brand in 2018 with a 48% year-on-year growth (Brand Finance, 2018). Some other notable achievements include; the subscriber base growing to over 16 million subscribers, the Cell C Sharks winning the 2018 Currie Cup, Take a Girl Child to Work Day being one of the most recognizable CSI initiatives in the country, and the marketing team and agency winning numerous local and international advertising awards over the period.

As the former Marketing Executive at Ster-Kinekor, South Africa’s leading motion picture exhibitor, I was responsible for the entire marketing function. There a cross-functional team interacted with all of the Hollywood studios in releasing and promoting over 300 movie titles per year. In getting to this output, some of the functions included above and below-the-line marketing, and active club membership programme, in-house creative design and constant movie studio management.

I served for 10 years as the Marketing Director of Nashua Mobile, one of South Africa's most successful cellular service providers, where I headed up the marketing function and was intrinsically involved in the company’s strategy. Nashua Mobile was focused on contract and pre-paid cellular, call routing and broadband data. Some of my team's achievements over that period included; successfully negotiating and navigating between the various networks and global handset manufacturers for the best deals, being the first cellular company to offer on-line billing to customers, working on a range of high-profile marketing properties like the FIFA World Cup with MTN and Sony Ericsson and the Tri Nations and Super Rugby with Vodacom, being part of the core who changed the organizational culture, managing a complete and diverse marketing and sales portfolio, and growing Nashua Mobile to be one of the biggest contributing companies in the Reunert stable.

I held two positions at Nashua; Cellular Product Manager and later Cellular Marketing Manager, and will always be proud to have been an integral part of the team that transformed Nashua's business - a bold move at the time as Nashua was the market leader in its traditional Office Automation sectors. These years were some of my best professionally as I worked for great leaders, had the freedom and latitude to be a real challenger brand and try new things whilst mastering my marketing craft, traveled the world, experienced a winning organizational culture, worked with multinational suppliers and built a great business in the process. When this cellular division was hived off and merged with NedTel Cellular (the cellular division of Nedbank), it accounted for half of Nashua's overall profits.

At Radiospoor, I was the Product Manager for consumer and business paging products that covered both the B2B and B2C markets. I was also part of the team that started investigating cellular communications as a replacement technology to paging, realizing that it offered newer and more sophisticated solutions to the market.

I started my career at Firestone Tyres in Port Elizabeth (1989), where I held three positions. As a Personnel Officer and Training Officer, I had access to all parts of the company and learned valuable lessons about the 'real world of work' at a major corporate company (having recently graduated from University). These roles crossed over both white and blue collar jobs and allowed me a rich insight into both the administrative side of the business as well as the factory floor where tires were produced. In furthering my career ambitions, I later took a transfer to Johannesburg and into the world of sales as a Dealer salesman with one of the biggest territories in SA.