ABOUT ME
I am an Executive and Teams Coach, focused on catalysing positive change in organisations, within and between people.
I began my career as Corporate Affairs Director of a mining company listed in South Africa and London, where I was responsible for Investor Relations, Corporate Communications and Strategic Human Resources. Subsequent to that, I started the Walnut Office: a boutique consultancy focused on communication, brand and culture, which I ran for several years.
My focus now is on collaborating with leaders and teams to understand what drives them, what holds them back and how they can be the most integrated, effective versions of themselves. I do this through personality mapping, coaching and bespoke team engagement processes.
- Women’s Wealth Academy (Standard Bank)
- Junior Leaders’ Academy (Standard Bank)
- Young Leaders’ Academy (Standard Bank)
- Future Leaders’ Academy (Standard Bank)
- Branding & Marketing for degree students (London School of Fashion)
- Corporate Communications for degree students (University of Johannesburg)
- Step Up (a psycho-social & literacy programme for vulnerable children in Cape Town)
I graduated with an Honours degree in Speech Language Pathology and Audiology, where I was awarded various academic scholarships and received the University’s Dean’s Merit Award for Top Student in a Professional Degree, the Phillips Medal for Most Outstanding Graduate and the Pierre De Villiers Prize for the Top Student in Speech and Hearing Therapy. Working in government education and health care in South Africa was seminal in securing my passion for unlocking human potential, in all of its forms and with all of its complexities.
I subsequently completed a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Administration at Wits Business School, where I was awarded the Executive Women’s Club Scholarship.
My continued professional development has included executive education programmes at the Gordon Institute of Business Science (Global Branding & Strategic Human Resources Management) and at Harvard Business School (Family Business). I am an Executive & Teams Coach and a certified Enneagram Practitioner and Enneagram Teams Practitioner.
Q&A
Creative, insightful, curious, compassionate, candid.
Impatient, anxious, controlling, blunt, perfectionistic.
I work in the field of organisational development, helping to catalyse change within people and between people through personality mapping, coaching, teaching and team engagement processes.
To live and work by design instead of by default, you have to understand yourself. Because so much of our personality structure is unconscious, there is some deep excavation work that has to be done to really understand not just what we do, but why. When we understand what drives us, we’re much better able to course-correct and make sustainable shifts.
I work mostly with a tool called the Enneagram, which is a very comprehensive personality framework. It gets to the core of why we do what we do and offers a dynamic map that shows us how we can move towards the most integrated version of ourselves.
Absolutely. It’s a brilliant tool for teams because it expedites change. It gives you a psychologically safe framework within which to engage and deep insight into yourself and your colleagues. The team map draws from each individual’s Enneagram profile, so you get a clear view of the whole team’s strengths, blindspots and paths to excellence.
- Less operating by default and more performing by design
- Less time wasting and more high impact conversations
- Less BS and more bravery
- Less judgement and more curiosity and compassion
- Less politics and more productive conflict
You cannot have high functioning, healthy teams without conflict. I worry when teams have no conflict, because that probably means that some people are not speaking their minds or that there isn’t enough diversity of thought in the team. You have to build trust to have productive conflict, or you’ll just have politics and drama, but conflict is necessary, because it pushes us, enlivens us and ultimately gets us to better solutions.
They can expect to embark on a meaningful (and often confronting) journey of self-discovery and growth. They will become more conscious, learn to how to leverage their strengths, face up to their defences, think more productively and address their imbalances. And they can expect their ego to loosen its grip, if only just a little.
Qualifications
Certifications
Enneagram Teams Practitioner | Integrative 9
Enneagram Practitioner | Integrative 9
Executive Coach | Results Coaching
Life Coach | Results Coaching
Courses
Strategic Human Resources Management | Gordon Institute of Business Science
Global Branding & Marketing | Gordon Institute of Business Science
Families in Business | Harvard Business School
Education
Post Graduate Diploma in Management (Business Admin) | Wits Business School
BA (Hons) Speech Language Pathology & Audiology (cum laude) | University of the Witwatersrand
