Meet GP

Perhaps it all started with my musical, interesting family. Perhaps it started in 1988 with that first public speaking competition. Or with poetry. Or with reading. Or with singing. I honestly don’t know. 

I do know that it all picked up speed in 1998. Life has always been fuller and more complex, and I was a postgraduate student and worked hard; I said yes to every opportunity which meant that being a scholar, an academic assistant, a lecturer, a radio presenter, an MC and a communication practitioner all started that year. It was all pretty loose and random but it was an accelerator year and I never looked back. 

In the middle 2000’s, whilst living in Pretoria, I formalised things under the name Curiosum and started spreading my wings as a communication consultant, doing a lot of MC-ing, public speaking, training and industrial theatre. From 1998 to 2017, I taught communication and marketing related courses at Damelin College, the Free State Technikon (now the Central University of Technology), the University of the Free State and the University of Pretoria before joining the North-West University (NWU) as a lecturer in 2007. I love collaborating with others and have always been blessed with great people willing to work with me. By 2016 I was old enough to have students old enough to book or collaborate with their old lecturer on a variety of events and campaigns. 

2017 and 2019 were another two accelerator years: in 2017 I moved out of my life as an academic and into a life of marketing and recruitment; in 2019 Coppertop Consulting officially came to life.  

And today? I bring positive energy and I win when others win. I get involved with enthusiasm and humour. I specialise in corporate communication but have not lost my first love: communication theory. Over time I have added a good understanding of research methodology, intercultural and team communication, strategic communication and communication planning to what I think about. 

Recent years allowed me to explore business processes, internal organisational communication, marketing, branding and sales. These days I speak, facilitate, consult, train and sing to and with people about their challenges regarding communication, shared vision, strategic drivers, corporate culture and the link between saying and doing. I always try to balance the theoretical and the practical, humour and solemnity, and creativity and pragmatism. I keep things light, energetic and applied.