Natalie Cunningham

Natalie Cunningham is currently a Professional Associate of GIBS. She also runs her own consultancy – Origo – specialising in Leadership Development, Organisational Development and People Development. During 2013, she worked with Knowledge Resources to conduct a Leadership Development Survey of 150 companies/ organisations in South Africa and their Leadership Development Practices. She is currently editing a book on Organisational Philosophies and Practices which will be released in March 2013.

Natalie was previously Director of The Leadership Development Centre at Wits Business School. She developed and designed the curriculum for a Masters in Management in Business and Executive Coaching. Furthermore, she set up a Coaching Supervision Certificate and Business Executive Coaching Certificate. Natalie also headed up all the coaching in support of Leadership Development Programmes at Wits. She holds a BA (S.W) Hons and an MBA from Wits. She is currently conducting her PhD research on “Developing theory on the coaching process based on the lived coaching experiences of Executives” “She was a founder member of “The Coaching Forum” – a supportive thought leadership forum for independent coaches. She attended the Global Coaching Convention in Dublin, Ireland in 2008 which resulted in the Dublin Declaration on Coaching (now signed by 15000 coaches worldwide). She is also one of 30 international experts who sat on the Worldwide Association of Coaches (WABC) to determine competencies of coaching. She also recently sat on the Board of Graduate School Alliance Executive Coaching (GSAEC). She has presented papers at several conferences, including New York, USA. She has also published articles in popular journals about coaching.

Natalie has a diverse range of skills but understands people and organisations very well. She is a good people manager and has often found herself in Leadership positions as she appears to have an excellent ability to influence people, ideas and processes which result in execution and implementation. She gets things done. Her Insights profile says” Natalie is stimulated by challenges and often shows ingenuity in meeting them. Natalie has a remarkable ability to get people to follow her lead.” Natalie believes she is able to focus on the achievement of tasks and deadlines whilst maintaining good relationships with people. Natalie has excellent conceptual skills and likes to ensure alignment with strategy, objectives and goals. Her ability to see the big picture, manage the detail and task and maintain motivation makes her an asset to change management and organisational change initiatives.

She has a solid grounding in academic theory knowing best practices but is rooted in pragmatism. Natalie focuses on finding solutions to problems. She loves to design curriculum and enjoys teaching and facilitating groups. She has a passion for Leadership Development. She has run her own consultancy – Origo Consultants for the last 24 years. The consultancy has specialised in people and organisational development. She simultaneously held the Role of Director of The Leadership Development Centre at Wits Business School for several years. In this role she increased turnover (increase in business) of the unit by 400% over a four year period. She was responsible for customising Leadership Programmes for corporates and brought in many new clients such as Accenture, Royal Bafokeng Holdings, Legal Aid, City of Johannesburg, Massmart, Discovery to name a few. She also developed a Mentorship programme for Leaders and many corporate leaders attended the nine month long programme including Mark Lamberti, Chairman and Founder of Transaction Capital; Gideon Novick, ex CEO Comair; Geoff Rothschild, Director JSE.

Natalie works well in Leadership positions where strategic focus balanced with implementation are required. She loves learning and best practices drive her approach to people and organisational development.

Natalie is married and has two teenage daughters. She lives in Somerset West in the Western Cape but commutes regularly to Johannesburg. She enjoys nature, music, good food and wines.