BIO

Jon is dean and director of Henley Business School, Africa, part of the University of Reading, UK. Henley is the only internationally triple accredited business school in Africa, the only overseas business school accredited in South Africa, the oldest business school in Europe and provides a highly-ranked international qualification.   Henley Business School Africa is growing in scope and numbers each year. For 15 years prior to joining Henley, he taught strategy, leadership, international business and innovation at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business (GSB) for the MBA and other programmes. He is a visiting Professor in strategy, creativity and innovation for the Namibian Business Innovation centre and Polytechnic of Namibia, and consults and advises numerous companies and organisations in the public and private sectors in Africa and internationally. Formerly an airline pilot, examiner and aerobatic competitor in Europe and South Africa, he later became sales manager in Africa and the Middle East for British Aerospace, selling airliners in a fiercely competitive, political and high-stakes market. He completed an MBA at Ashridge, UK, in 1990. After this he began teaching strategy and international business part-time, and joined Airbus Industrie in Toulouse as the marketing director of a JV to train European aerospace executives in international commercial skills. He has hands-on experience of international sales and marketing, and of leading multicultural sales and management teams. He has worked internationally in the field for 30 years, principally in Europe, Africa, Middle East, Australasia and North America and is an experienced executive, consultant, speaker, lecturer and facilitator. In 1995 he returned to South Africa to lead the strategy area for the MBA at the UCT GSB. He designed and directed the Executive MBA, became director of Executive and Management Education, and developed an interest in strategy, international business, creativity and innovation. He spent some time on sabbatical in New Zealand as director of the Southern Innovation Centre and incubator in South Island, New Zealand, before returning in 2003 to UCT to continue his teaching and design work. He developed ground-breaking courses in Creategy™ - the art of creative strategy, the strategy master academy, strategy starter kit, and a popular and innovative MBA elective, ‘Strategy, Design and Creativity.’ He has also designed, directed or participated in numerous leadership and management programmes for companies such as SABMiller, De Beers, Lonmin, Nestlé, Discovery, Allan Gray, Sheraton Sun International, the Airports Company South Africa, Eskom and PetroSA. At the same time Jon developed his own strategy consulting practice, working with a number of South African and international organisations to further develop their business strategies and build their local and international business.