About the guest speakers:
Prof Shirley Zinn is the Group Executive HR at Nedbank. Prior to this, she was the General Manager for Human Resources at the South African Revenue Service (SARS). She is also an extraordinary professor at the University of Pretoria’s Department of Human Resource Management and is the Immediate Past President of the Institute for People Management South Africa.
She started her career as a secondary school teacher of English, then moved to the University of the Western Cape where she lectured in Teacher Education. After this, she served at Southern Life as Training Manager and then moved to the Department of Public Service and Administration’s: South African Management Development Institute, in Pretoria as Director. She held the position of Executive Employment Equity at Computer Configurations Holdings. Before her appointment at SARS, she filled the role of Regional Human Resources Director for Middle East and Africa for Reckitt Benckiser, a global company listed on the London Stock Exchange.
In addition to serving on the Monash South Africa Board, she also is the past Chairperson of the Institute of Bankers South Africa and sits on the Council of the Banking Sector Education and Training Authority. She also serves on the HR Committee of the Board at SAICA (South African Institute of Chartered Accountants). She is a mentor to several women in the financial services industry. She is also a patron to the SAALED (South African Association for Learning and Educational Differences), as well as a patron to the Friends Daycare Centre, for children with severe disabilities.
She holds a BA (University of the Western Cape); Higher Diploma in Education (University of the Western Cape); B.Ed Honours (UNISA); M.Ed: Focus (University of the Western Cape); Ed.M (Harvard) and Doctorate in Education (Ed.D) (Harvard). She was awarded the Top Woman in Business and Government and Top Executive in Corporate South Africa.by Topco Media in 2008. She also was recognized by the Black Business Quarterly and received the Award for Top Woman in Business and Government and most Visionary Woman in 2008.
Michael Jackson has over 25 years of strategic business, marketing and communications experience. Born in Britain, then London educated and trained in business strategy development and communication he has worked personally with Richard Branson at Virgin Atlantic, as well as with the directors of many other global businesses such as Microsoft, Nike and HP.
Michael later moved to South Africa to work with an international advertising agency, as that country became a democracy, where he specialised in developing strategies for companies wishing to establish a presence or expansion into Africa.
He still occasionally consults in this arena, yet today he is widely regarded as a full time professional speaker and writer and has become globally renowned and sought-after as a specialist on the subject of business change.
Michael has carved out an enviable reputation as one of the best business-to-business speakers on the global professional circuit by speaking at around 120 conferences and seminars a year across Africa, Asia, Europe, the USA and the Middle East; to audiences ranging from factory workers to Heads of State.
Michael is consistently rated by his clients, conference organisers and audiences alike as ‘simply outstanding’ for the way he creates and delivers powerful change messages – and he creates and weaves personalised individual company and industry business messages into all of his materials to suit every individual audience.
Michael successfully predicts and details market performances, trends and consumer behaviour with unerring accuracy for companies, industries and markets around the world – while motivating his business audiences to perform to a better personal standard.