Team
Our Team
Kutlwelo Academy is accredited by the Services SETA. Our team Includes Dr Maureen Tong as Director responsible for training in South Africa. We have two Consultants, Dr Azwinndini Tshivhase and our Consultant in Botswana, Mr Mooketsi Maphane. We collaborate with independent Facilitators, Assessors and Moderators who are accredited by the Services SETA. They include Daphne Els and Belinda Beer.
DR MAUREEN TONG - DIRECTOR
Dr Maureen Tong is the chairwoman of Kutlwelo Group and InvesTong Group. She serves on the Board of Legal Aid South Africa. She is a Member of the Council of the University of KwaZulu- Natal.
She is an international lawyer; executive coach; trainer; published author; and a businesswoman. She holds a PhD in international law from the Université de Strasbourg in France, where she successfully defended her thesis in French. She was awarded BIuris; LLB and LLM by the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
She has taught at the University of KwaZulu – Natal, and the University of Pretoria. Currently she is a sessional (part- time) lecturer at Wits Business School (WBS), which is part of the University of Witwatersrand. She recently joined the University of Cape Town (UCT) Graduate School of Business to teach leadership on a part- time basis.
Dr Tong was Visiting Scholar at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago, Illinois and at Florida International University in Miami, Florida. She has presented academic papers at City University of New York; American University in Washington; Catholic University in Madrid; and Vrije University, Amsterdam. She presented papers on economic, social, and cultural rights at the First World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil. She served as Research Assistant to the First United Nations Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Rights, Prof Rodolfo Stavenhagen from Mexico. This was for the purposes of Rodolfo Stavenhagen submitting his first Annual Report to the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Dr Tong has published academics books on topics such as the right of indigenous peoples to political self-determination, restitution of land rights, land reform, women’s access to land etc. She recently published a book on coaching and self-care titled ‘Pour into Your Soul: Let Your Cup Overflow.’
Dr Tong established the Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute (TMALI) , now called the Thabo Mbeki African School of Public and International Affairs. She served as Project Manager for the establishment of the Thabo Mbeki Presidential Library (TMPL). Both TMALI and TMPL are projects of the Thabo Mbeki Foundation and University of South Africa (Unisa).
She was Deputy Director of the Centre for Human Rights (CHR) at the University of Pretoria. She worked as a Consultant at the John Langalibalele Dube Institute, now called Fuze Institute, at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. She delivered the John Langalibalele Dube Memorial Lecture in 2017. She was Street Law Coordinator at the Centre for Socio – Legal Studies at University of KwaZulu-Natal
Dr Tong is an Associate Certified Coach (ACC) of the International Coach Federation (ICF). She is the former Deputy Company Secretary of Coaches and Mentors of South Africa (COMENSA) and Past President of the Pretoria Chapter of the Professional Speakers Association of Southern Africa (PSASA).
She has coached and trained government officials and executives from several companies in South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sweden, Spain, Czech Republic, Romania, Poland, Denmark, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Algeria, India and Pakistan.
She provides parttime Company Secretariat function at the Women’s Development Banking (WDB) Trust where she was Research Manager. She is a Board Member at PingLady, the incubator for women in technology.
She worked as Project Officer for Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Namibia at the African Management Services Company (AMSCO) implementing the African Training Management Services (ATMS) a Project of the World Bank, African Development Bank (AfDB), International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Dr Tong was the first Chief Operations Officer (COO) at the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform and later became Chief of Staff at the same Ministry. More recently she served as Technical Advisor to the Presidential Advisory Panel on Land Reform and Agriculture in South Africa in 2018/2019. She was Operations Manager a t UNDP South Africa.
DR AZWINNDINI CHRIS TSHIVHASE - CONSULTANT
Dr Azwinndini Chris Tshivhase holds a PhD in education policy development and implementation from the University of Pretoria.
He started his career as a professional educator in Limpopo. After moving to Pretoria in Gauteng he worked for a number of years as an educator at Filadelfia Secondary School – a school catering for learners with special educational needs, including the physically disabled, blind and visual impaired, deaf and hard of hearing. He was appointed as the first African senior lecturer at the Department of Languages, Communication and Education at Vaal University of Technology (VUT) where he spent 6 years in the position.
He was then offered a fellowship programme to stay and study in Fontys Hogescholen (University of Professional Education) to complete a certificate in train-the-trainer in education management.
He has held several positions and acted as adviser on issues of policy development and implementation; ICT teaching and learning; curriculum design; learning development; and project management.
As Director for Curriculum Development and Learning at the University of South Africa (Unisa) he led and co-ordinated various curriculum design and learning development projects in the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) initiatives in various countries including Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Sudan. He has read papers and made presentations at various national and international forums and conferences in United Kingdom, Germany, USA, Canada and United Arab Emirates.
Dr Tshivhase worked as a consultant for various institutions in areas of policy, strategy, project management, standards development, curriculum design and review.
Dt Tshivhase was SAJEI Director for Curriculum Development and e – Learning at the Office of the Chief Justice. He was also the Director for Quality Assurance at the University of Zululand (UniZullu).
MR MOOKETSI MAPHANE - CONSULTANT IN BOTSWANA
Mr Mooketsi Maphane brings over 15 years of executive-level expertise in human resource management; executive coaching; career development counselling; succession planning; process re- engineering design as well as change management.
He also has extensive experience in strategic planning; organizational alignment; mergers and acquisitions; executive development; board compensation and development; and external as well as internal communications.
He has successfully led talent management processes and learning and development initiatives to strategically transition companies into dominant market leaders. He has facilitated large scale organizational learning initiatives to produce prolific growth.
He specializes in working with leaders to be successful in leading organizations as well as working with teams to achieve the highest results possible in today’s challenging VUCA (Volatile; Uncertain; Complex and Ambiguous) business environment. He has successfully coached numerous individual and teams to unsurpassed results; and has created and facilitated experiential team building; leadership; change management; organizational culture; accountability; communication and emotional intelligence.
He has also facilitated sales and product knowledge workshops and seminars on life insurance across the country.
He coaches through the interview process, using assessments to help individuals know more about their strengths and weaknesses, and unleashing maximum leadership potential in others.
Mr Maphane holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology from Hawaii Pacific University, USA, and a Master of Science in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from Springfield College, USA.
He participated in the Management Development Program offered by the University of Stellenbosch Business School. He is a Certified Coach through the Neuro Linguistic Coaching Program.
He also has a Certificate of Proficiency in Insurance (Life) and Practice of Long-Term Insurance from the Insurance Institute of South Africa and a Financial Advisors International from the Qualification Chartered Institute of Insurance (CII), UK. He is a member of Coaches and Mentors of South Africa (COMENSA).
He is Consultant at our office in Gaborone, Botswana.
DAPHNE ELS - INDEPENDENT ASSESSOR
Daphne Els is accredited with a number of SETAs, including the Services SETA.
Ms Els has practiced as an independent consultant in business consulting, focusing on organisational development, leadership development, strategy formulation & translation, change & transformation management, self-actualization, diversity dynamics and coaching.
She started her career in the banking industry as a Human Resources (HR) Practitioner where she was involved in the full generalist human resource functions of recruitment & selection; training & development; as well as labour relations. Daphne then changed careers and worked for 9 (nine) years at a Tertiary Institution, namely the Centre for Career Development (CCD) at the then Technikon Witwatersrand, which is now part of the University of Johannesburg. She was the Program Manager for the MBA program at the University of Wales, which was offered in conjunction with the then Technikon Witwatersrand and five other South African Technikons (now called universities of technology).
Throughout her career at the CCD at the then Technikon Witwatersrand, she designed and presented training to both the public and private sector. These programs covered a variety of Life Skills, Supervisory Development, Management Development, Human Resource Management and Sales & Marketing related topics. She also a part-time lecturer to the second year and third year students, teaching the following subjects: Management, Marketing, Organisational Development and Organisational Behaviour. She became involved in the coaching and mentoring of students in the HR field.
Ms Els has held numerous senior executive management roles within the private sector. She has extensive experience in strategy, transformational leadership, business management, Human Resources Development (HRD) and adult learning. She has since found her niche in the field of learning and development.
Ms Els has been part of a project on Diversity and Transformation for Anglo American in which she researched the manifestation of racism and sexism in the mining sector as well as implementing a diversity programme for their platinum operations. She has also participated in Racism Surveys and led a few of Anglo’s Operations in a Leadership Forum which looks at their values and culture.
BELINDA BEER - INDEPENDENT MODERATOR
Ms Belinda Beer is accredited with a number of SETAs, including the Services SETA.
Ms Beer is passionate about seeing a difference in the skills development space. She has worked in the training industry for over 16 years in various roles. For example, she was a training consultant, assessor, and moderator. She brings to the table knowledge on how to implement assessment and moderation practices in line with Sector Education Training Authority (SETA) and South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) requirements.
We offer a bouquet of training programmes in leadership development; coaching; talent management; people management; change management; as well as diversity and inclusion