Tony began his career as an apprentice draughtsman in the shipyards in north-east England. He was nominated to join a graduate development programme at Newcastle University, where he attained the only first class honours degree in naval architecture in the UK in 1992.
After 10 years of designing and building ships he joined ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries) at its Teesside (Middlesbrough) ethylene cracker as a technical engineer. He was subsequently promoted to maintenance management and then operations management roles.
In 1995 he moved to ICI’s catalyst business, initially in a techno-commercial role, selling consultancy services. In this role he gained valuable experience in various cultures in many regions, including the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific.
Tony was then appointed as the site manager in ICI’s UK catalyst manufacturing plant. He soon took on extra duties involving the acquisition and integration of new businesses and joint ventures, and had a role in the acquisition of ICI by Johnson Matthey (JM).
Soon thereafter he became global operations director of JM, during which time he gained a masters degree in manufacturing leadership at Cambridge University. It was there he came across the care and growth leadership framework, which he subsequently introduced in the JM operations function.
Tony then joined JM’s head office to implement a global manufacturing excellence programme. He was asked to focus on leadership aspects and so further introduced the framework into the global management development programme for JM.
Tony’s final position at JM was talent and development director, in which he further refined his skills in people development. After 42 years of full time employment he retired in 2021 to work as a consultant with Legitimate Leadership.
Tony’s other interests include property development. He fulfilled a lifelong wish to build his own house by converting a derelict barn which provides space for other hobbies such as older car and motorbike restoration, and getting stung by the bees he keeps!
Ian spent most of his childhood in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, initially in East London and later at boarding school in Grahamstown. After leaving school, Ian studied and worked in Cape Town, gaining bachelor’s and Master’s business qualifications, as well as valuable experience as part of an Internet start-up during the turn of the century IT boom.
Following his time in Cape Town, Ian lived and worked abroad briefly before he returned to South Africa and took up a business consulting position within a growing IT and management consulting firm. Whilst based primarily in Johannesburg, Ian was also granted the opportunity to live in London and experience Europe. Ian returned to South Africa in 2011 and currently lives in Johannesburg with his wife and two children.
Ian’s passion for leadership began early in his life and continues to this day. Ian has held various leadership positions from captaining the junior national rowing VIII to an MD role in London. Ian was more recently responsible for leading the Professional Services business unit at the aforementioned consulting firm – a role in which he experienced first-hand the power of the Legitimate Leadership approach to leading others. Ian believes that caring for, and growing, one’s team is the primary responsibility of any leader, and that the solution to many of today’s most challenging business problems lies in building strong and sincere workplace relationships based on these two core values.
Peter Jordan grew up on the East Rand in South Africa. He was a high school teacher for nine years and then lectured in history at the Johannesburg College of Education. Peter then moved into industry, as a Training Officer at AECI Explosives and Chemicals (now AEL Mining Services) in 1989.
He gradually moved from training and development to become a human resources generalist, finally being appointed as Group Human Resources Manager. After nine years in this role, Peter retired from AEL at the end of 2010. However he thereafter returned to AEL as a consultant, particularly in organizational transformation.
For most his time at AEL Peter was closely associated with the Legitimate Leadership framework. In the 1990s he was deeply involved in the entrenchment of this model at the AEL manufacturing plants at Modderfontein, Johannesburg.
Leanne started her career in South Africa in the fast-food industry, then moved to the tumultuous security industry in the mid-1990s.
She was instrumental in the formation of a new employer organisation in the South African security industry and was later appointed vice-chairperson of this body; she also served on a regulatory body for the industry.
After a brief period in the construction industry in Zambia, Botswana, Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates, she returned to the fast-food sector in South Africa as a shareholder and director.
Leanne’s key strength is converting business strategy into a measurable HR strategy.
Although a generalist, her passion is conflict resolution, change management and improvement of HR service delivery within an organisation.
Since 2012, Leanne has been consulting to various sectors including NGOs, the security industry, light engineering, manufacturing, aeronautics, hospitality, and fast foods. Projects have included disciplinary hearings, conciliation and mediation council representations, coaching and mentoring, policy and procedure re-engineering and implementation, equity reports, facilitation, and industrial relations training.
Leanne has been a Legitimate Leadership associate since November 2016.
Stefaan, a South African, competed in the US collegiate golf first division and various professional golf tours for 10 years. He also traded on the foreign exchange market for five years. He now applies this experience of achieving in high-performance arenas in his coaching and leadership consulting with clients.
He has been involved with executive coaching and leadership consulting since 2007 in South Africa for major companies, at senior management and executive levels.
Stefaan says coaching helps him and his clients move away from the cycle of reacting habitually, to shift to a place where “one is able to pause, reflect and to respond skilfully … coaching is important because it helps people to question, to make sense and to find meaning in who they are and how they contribute to society.”
Stefaan has been involved with the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business’s Centre for Coaching. He was also a faculty member of the South African College of Applied Psychology where he facilitated the Applying the Principles of Adult Learning and Change in Coaching module.
Stuart Foulds has over 15 years of experience in change management, organisational development, communication strategy and organisational communications, as well as training and leadership development.
He spent almost 10 years as an expert consultant at McKinsey & Co. He was responsible for delivering communication strategy, change management and related advice to corporate and government clients in various countries and sectors. Thereafter he ran his own communication consultancy for three years, based in Luxembourg and serving clients in four continents.
Back in South Africa since 2015, Stuart was appointed as senior manager for organisational development at AllLife, a niche life insurance company. This role included creating the architecture to assess and build capabilities and effectiveness within AllLife’s management team.
Stuart then spent time with Sinequanon, a start-up people analytics consultancy, where he helped develop a suite of implementation products to enable clients to translate Sinequanon’s analytical insights into action. Focus areas included leadership development, employee communication/engagement, and optimising critical people processes like performance management.
Stuart has been associated with Legitimate Leadership since 2017.
Sylvania studied and worked in Cape Town, gaining a B Tech degree in Business Administration. She then worked in administration for Ernst & Young, and thereafter in labour law for the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration in the Arbitration Department as a Professional Assistant.
She subsequently lived in the United Kingdom, Russia and Greece. Following her return to South Africa, she was a Business Manager for an independent school, Pecanwood College in Hartebeespoort Dam.
Sylvania joined Legitimate Leadership in 2016. She has been co-developer of the Afrika Tikkun-Legitimate Leadership Give to Grow programme aimed at developing and growing the youth in South Africa. Her main roles in Legitimate Leadership are project management, client project quality management, sales and marketing management and development of associates.
Sylvania grew up in Cape Town, the youngest of 10 siblings. She now lives in Johannesburg; she is married with three children. Her interest includes, most importantly, family – followed by community service, cooking, hiking and running, and yoga.
After university, Nonhlanhla began her career in the South African mining industry. She worked for Anglo American, formerly South Africa’s largest mining company. In this job, she particularly conducted conduct quality assurance and control research on projects. She later also worked for a smaller geology consultancy, and thereafter for a postal and office administration franchise.
Nonhlanhla joined Legitimate Leadership in 2019. Her main roles in Legitimate Leadership are business administration and managing the many surveys which the company conducts.
She was born and raised mainly in the Durban area. She now lives in Johannesburg. She is married with two sons. She is fascinated by mid-century furniture and architecture, interior decorating, exploring parks and driving around residential neighbourhoods – as well as trying out new cooking recipes.
Mixo Mayimele has over 20 years of experience in South Africa and internationally in consulting engineering, telecommunications technology and investment. He has founded and managed companies in technology project management and venture capital investment.
His tertiary education was in South Africa and The Netherlands. He has worked in Johannesburg, Shanghai and Amsterdam.
In 2015-2019 he was MD of the Southern African-Netherlands Economic Chamber and was a director of the Euro Chamber in South Africa (whose membership is primarily European multinationals).
He has also headed Pepperfield Ventures, a boutique advisory venture capital firm focused on supporting early-stage African companies in their growth and being investor-ready. He particularly does deal sourcing and corporate finance, and provides leadership and strategic direction to early-stage companies.
After completing an Honours degree in Psychology at Rhodes, Josh started what would be a long career in the Project Management Consulting Industry. Working with Deloitte’s, The X-Pert Group, Business Connexion as well as for himself over a period of 12 years he spent time leading large, complex business transformation programmes as well as implementing project management best practice in the public and private sector. As a facilitator he has also amassed a wealth of experience in group process, helping more than 40 organisations in the areas of employee and stakeholder engagement, strategy development and translation as well as personal development.
This eventually led to an introduction to Legitimate Leadership and the Care and Growth model in 2012, and Josh has been an associate of the business since then. In this time, he has both led and participated in a number of transformation efforts in the mining, manufacturing, engineering, financial services and health care industries.
Josh grew up with one foot in Gauteng and the other in the Eastern Cape, which is where he now resides, but travels extensively for work. He lives in a small coastal village on the east coast outside of East London with his wife Sally and two children, Neve and Jack. The whole family enjoy an active outdoor life, spending lots of time in the bush on running and mountain biking trails.