International Leadership and Team Building Expert, Master Storyteller

The human skills of leadership explored through African animal fables to develop high-functioning people and teams

I'm a passionate storyteller, working with businesses and leaders internationally to help them develop high-functioning teams through improved corporate culture and employee engagement.

Professor Robert McKee said: “Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world”. I believe he's right.

I share the lessons I've learned in a unique way - through African animal fables. My presentations and programs are immersive and experiential, taking audiences on captivating journeys of the imagination into the African bush on “Leadership Safaris”.

An ex-CEO and Managing Director, I interlace my animal fable presentations with anecdotes, examples and stories from my business experience and my unusual life journey through an upbringing and military service in war-torn Zimbabwe, personal tragedies, and fulfilling triumphs, to teach in a practical yet highly engaging way.

Each of my Big Five Leadership Territories focuses on a specific aspect of the "people" side of business, helping you develop high-performing teams, engaged individuals, and exceptional workplace cultures. Each territory can be delivered as a keynote presentation and/or a hands-on workshop or extended program.

I have lived and worked on three continents, founded my own successful advertising agency from which not a single staff member resigned in 7 years, and later, in Australia, led a large human services company through the merging of 12 separate organisations in a four year period, to achieve global top-tier staff satisfaction and engagement ratings only one year after the main merger.

I have degrees in business and psychology, literally thousands of hours of other study and reading, and am the author of “Leading for an Engaged Culture: How The Meerkats Formed a Family and Other Stories”, as well as a personal development book: “Purposeful – A Step-By-Step Guide to Finding Clear Direction in a Chaotic World”. My third book (a selection of my Leadership Safari fables with principles and tips for developing high-functioning people and teams) is due for publication around April 2023. I have also been published in numerous business magazines and have appeared on national radio and television in Australia.

I have worked around the world with some of the world’s biggest brands, including ANZ Bank, Caterpillar, Johnson & Johnson, P&O, Reckitt Benckiser, Unilever, and Young and Rubicam.

My inspiring life lessons: A business IS its people. Without people working together, no business can exist. I learned about real teamwork growing up through and serving on active military service as a sergeant in the Rhodesian civil war, and through observing the habits and traits of the amazing wildlife that surrounded us in what’s now Zimbabwe. The lessons my early life taught me, seeing the similarities been people and animals when the group draws together towards a common cause, have stayed with me, and I have learned that the way a team operates in a business environment is based on similar underlying principles. Teams function best when they have a shared vision and purpose, respect and trust in each other, and genuinely care for each other and the team as a group. And I’ve learned that those traits can’t be forced on them – they must develop through the nurturing of individual talent and the development of a supportive culture. At Leadership Safaris, we believe that it is the responsibility of every organisation to operate in a sustainable way to promote a better workplace and a better world. We believe that a shift in leadership philosophy to a genuine, deep focus on people and the planet will drive better productivity, better profit, better businesses, and a better world.