ELAINE RUMBOLL
ELAINE RUMBOLL
Professor of Play, Elaine Rumboll, is the founder and managing director of The Creative Leadership Consultancy, a learning agency based on global collaborations to build more Agile, Playful, Curious and Energised leaders, an internationally accredited Master LEGO® Serious Play® practitioner as well as a blues singer. She won the International Poet of Merit award in 1995 in the USA and is an author of four books.
After having spent three years (1995-1997) running weekly creative transdisciplinary workshops in maximum security prisons (Johannesburg Maximum Security Prison, Diepkloof Women’s Prison and briefly at Pretoria Central) for which she received a nomination by Femina for Woman of the Year (1996), and then getting burnt out by using creative practices to help children in care in London (1998), she reskilled herself and entered the world of business and went on to become Dean for Damelin Management School overseeing the learning of 55 000 students.
She then tackled the executive education space and as director of Executive Education at UCT GSB (2005-2011) built the unit to international recognition. During her seven years as director of Executive Education at UCT GSB, she grew revenues 4.5 times and ensured a place in the top fifty globally for customised leadership development work - first in Africa according to the Financial Times of London and in the top 5 internationally according to the Economist (London). She also served as the chairperson for the advisory board of UCT GSB Women in Leadership. Elaine won Business Woman of the Year in 2010 (Business Women's Association - Professional category).
After leaving UCT GSB, Elaine completed a two year stint as Professor and Leader in Residence for Sustainable Leadership Practices on the Masters in Business Leadership at Curtin Graduate School of Business in Perth, Australia (2011-2012) and served as Adjunct Professor in the Engagement, International and Governance portfolio at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia (2013-2014). In 2017, Elaine was granted a Professorship in Play by the Western Orthodox university where she also holds a chair in Creative Leadership.
She holds an MA (cum laude) in Comparative Literature (1994-1998) where her research area focused on exploring and critiquing Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari’s work on desire and an MBA (2002-2004) from the University of the Witwatersand where her research report focused on Executive Coaching as a Leadership Development tool.
Elaine has taught in South Africa, Zambia, Kenya, Switzerland, England, Denmark, Italy, the United States and Australia. She has worked with many organisations on growing their leaders including Investec, Levi’s, The Cyril Ramaphosa Foundation, the World Economic Forum, Ogilvy, SC Johnson, PwC, Mr Price, The Coca-Cola Company, HomeChoice, Zoona, Toyota, Audi, VW and Nestlé. A highlight of her teaching was to work with the global chief learning officers of the United Nations in Turin, Italy.
Her sideproject Business Acumen for Artists has run since 2007. For the last eighteen years, she has helped artists from up to 20 different disciplines understand the language of business to more effectively master their creative entrepreneurship. Alumni include Julia Anastasopoulos (Suzelle DIY), Lady Skollie, Karin Rae (Dear Rae) and Lorraine Loots (365 Paintings for Ants).
Elaine is currently an adjunct senior faculty member at UCT GSB and Duke CE. In 2020, Elaine ran a sideproject with Renee Rossouw, co-hosting the vegan The Super Simple Plant Show. In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic she created three new, experiential online offerings: Resilience - How to Build a Sanctuary in the Present, Inner Agility, Whole Bodied Listening in Fractured Times and Leading The Great Reset. In 2024, she focused on developing a new body of work on Art Thinking and its impact on leadership development, as well as Seeking through Scent and GlimmerBoarding - a way to connect to Joy. In 2025, she is blending creative leadership tools including LEGO for masterclasses dedicated to freeing up energy for growth and change in teams and individuals.
CATHLIN MILLWARD
CATHLIN MILLWARD
Services
Employee Engagement including Gallup Q12, Global Engagement Index, Quantum Workplace, Lattice and Workleap
HR Operating Models
Org Design and Job Architecture
Performance Management Philosophy, System and Practice
High Performance Workplace
Gallup Strengths Coaching
Enneagram Coaching
Cathlin Millward , Senior Partner at the Creative Leadership Consultancy, is an accomplished Organisation Effectiveness Strategist and an expert in employee engagement and performance, with 25 years of HR leadership experience. Her career spans diverse sectors, including mining, manufacturing, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), and financial services, working with both start-ups and multinational corporations.
Core Expertise and Impact
Cathlin specializes in transforming human resources practices into tangible business results. Her "sweet spot" involves designing performance and engagement systems that unlock discretionary effort, leading to increased productivity and retention. Her expertise includes:
Employee Engagement: Her Master's research focused on this area, and she has successfully deployed multiple Gallup Q12 programs that have directly improved revenue, customer Net Promoter Score (NPS), and manager effectiveness.
Performance Management: She has led end-to-end redesigns of performance frameworks, resulting in reduced time-to-hire, halved agency spend, and the development of robust successor pipelines.
Leadership & Culture: Cathlin provides coaching using frameworks like the Enneagram and Gallup Strengths. She is also skilled in solutions-focused facilitation and implementing change frameworks that are sustainable and effective.
Credentials and Approach
Cathlin's strong academic background includes a BA in Industrial Psychology & English from Rhodes University, a PGDip in Management from Wits Business School, a PGCert in Advanced Labour Law from UNISA, and an MSc in Organisational Behaviour from Trinity College Dublin.
She holds numerous certifications, including Gallup Strengths Coach & Q12 Implementer, Enneagram Practitioner, Korn Ferry Success Profiles & ALP, PROSCI/ADKAR, Certified Scrum Master, and LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®.
Cathlin partners leaders at all levels to diagnose capability gaps, build human-centred talent engines and deliver business impact, fast. Analytical yet warm, Cathlin has a proven track record in helping organisations harness the talent they already have, while winning the results they still need.
JEANNE VON HIRSCHBERG
JEANNE VON HIRSCHBERG
Dr Jeanne von Hirschberg started her career in the food industry as a creative director. Her passion for the creative, operational, and collaborative aspects of branded product development has resulted in her being directly involved in over 700 successful product launches over the last three decades, working with national and international brands. Her toolkit involves both the supplier and retailer perspectives, thereby maximising context and mechanisms for fast-tracking innovation. Jeanne's philosophy in successfully bringing products to market is firmly rooted in end-consumer commercial relevance.
She was directly involved in scaling eight start-ups with a specific skillset pertaining to (1) initial bootstrapping to appropriate timely business scaling, (2) achieving organisational effectiveness via smart operations and team development, (3) achieving and maintaining end-consumer relevance, and (4) contextualising each business’ unique aspects and linking it to business fundamentals to ensure sustainable success.
A grain of team and leadership development threads through Jeanne’s career; initial years involved accelerated junior team development, advancing to current part time lecturing at the CTCA, and custom executive leadership development programme design and facilitation as a proud CLC associate.
Jeanne completed a doctorate degree in innovation management in 2021, with a specific focus on how appropriate leadership, relational quality, and team dynamics ensure commercial success. She was awarded Top Achiever status for her doctorate dissertation.
A ceramicist by night, Jeanne’s off-white bisque dinner plates scribbled with witticisms/aphorisms have become sought-after gifts in South Africa and abroad.
LIANNE DU TOIT
LIANNE DU TOIT
Lianne currently resides between Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa, recent winner of 2018 Inspiring Fifty and voted as one of “Fast Company’s most creative people in business in 2016 and entering nominee of the Digital Leadership Female Awards.
She is a qualified LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® facilitator which is a proven methodology that helps unlocks the potential of all the participants in a workshop environment. At its core participants work together to solve complex issues by building models using LEGO bricks. The metaphors in the models serve as the basis for group discussion, knowledge sharing and problem solving and help foster creative thinking and finding unique solutions
Lianne is the Business Network Director for non-profit YPO (Global platform for leaders to engage, learn and grow) and certified as a Leadership Coach helping to build the leaders of tomorrow today.
Today, YPO empowers more than 25,000 members in more than 130 countries and through its membership can be considered as the 13 largest diversified among industries and types of businesses. Altogether, YPO member-run companies employ 16 million people and generate USD6 trillion in annual revenues.
She has recently embarked on co-founding Care Direct; which is a platform that matches care seekers and caregivers to each other in South Africa.
Lianne has hosted over 1000 events in helping uplift the community through raising awareness of technology while she was Vice-Chair of Silicon Cape (ie Barack Obama’s Road to GES, Startup Bus and Get in the Ring). Shefounded Renegade Tech Events (Tech Events Business) and HackOn (Hackathon Consulting Service) in 2017 combining her passion for events and technology.
Lianne was also on the core team of Future Females; which helps females network, engage and connect with networks in cities like Cape Town, London, Brisbane and Berlin.
Airbnb dubbed Lianne “the Startup Saint” and awarded her rights to run Airbnb experiences where locals and visitors get to meet, talk and share insights about the Cape Town tech startup eco-system.
Lianne sits on the board of
- Girls do Good. A print and digital augmented reality-infused guide colouring book for girls and boys aged 6 – 12 highlighting stories of real superhero’s.
- Soul Donations, a community project, collecting unwanted goods, raising funds or simply creating further awareness for NPO’s, NGO’s, NPC’s and smaller organizations who don’t have the means to do it for themselves and
In her spare time, Lianne is studying towards becoming a qualified mindfulness children practitioner with Mindful Mini’s.
FRANCOIS IRVINE
FRANCOIS IRVINE
Francois Irvine is a passionate and curious creative entrepreneur. He is a talented artist with a higher diploma in printmaking, a gifted silversmith, an internationally renowned interior designer and collector of beautiful things.
Currently co-owner of the Haas Collective, he spends his days working with unbelievably talented local artists and designers. Conjuring up delicious recipes and jewellery design are part of his daily routine.
Any spare time is spent on exciting new ventures and discovering unknown mediums. Every day is an opportunity to experience something novel. Francois is both generous in sharing what he knows and in collaborating with interested and likeminded people.
He has a keen interest in the simplicity of eastern philosophy and practices and working toward a more sustainable and mindful way of living.
As an Associate of the Creative Leadership Consultancy, he is spearheading the sensemaking experiments we are undertaking focusing on our first initiative, The Smell of Bravery - Creating Incense to mark Bravery.