Bio

Bio

It was after graduating with a Bachelors degree in Architecture at the University of Cape Town, while I was completing my Post-Graduate degree in the Behavioural Sciences, that I became immersed in guiding and teaching.

Lifeskills Facilitator & Corporate and Sales Trainer

I spent the following two years based in Cape Town as a Lifeskills Facilitator for the UCT Lifeskills Education Project and as a corporate and sales trainer for M.A.S.T. (Management and Skills Training). This was tremendously rewarding and often outreach work, especially in the context of the political and economic turmoil South Africa was in at the time.

Game Ranger, Photographic Safaris, Head Ranger, General Manager

In 1990, my passion for wildlife and the outdoors triumphed. I left the city and I went to live and work in the great African bushveld. I underwent intense and thorough training and succeeded in qualifying as a game ranger. I spent the next seven truly life-changing years as a ranger and guiding photographic safaris mainly in South Africa’s Kruger National Park, whilst progressing through various leadership and management positions on the Reserve, including Head Ranger and eventually General Manager (Selati Lodge, Sabi Sabi).

Behavioral Ecology Research Project

I developed a special interest in the behavioral ecology of Africa’s three Big Cat species –lion, leopard and cheetah- and started a research project to study those species’ populations of the area, which I worked on for those years and which still continues today.

International Wildlife Photography Awards

It was also here where my love for wildlife photography started. Over the years now I’ve been fortunate to have won multiple international awards, fellowships and honors for my Big Cat and other wildlife photography, and to have had my photographic work published in numerous books, magazines, articles around the world.

Big Cat Photographic Safari

I also grabbed opportunities that came my way to work, photograph wildlife, guide and lead safaris in National Parks and reserves in other sub-Saharan African countries: Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Kenya and Tanzania. (And even to this day, typically once a year I take a break from my speaking business to lead a Big Cat photographic safari to East Africa, focused around The Great Migration.)

Bushveld Lessons™ Keynotes and Seminars

In 1996, I moved from the bush to the US (with my American wife, Heidi 🙂 ) to begin to share my message I’d developed of the incredible organizational and life lessons we can learn from how wildlife have survived millennia of constant change and brutal competition. The North American market was hugely receptive to my very ‘different’ message, and for the next seven years I traveled from my base in Denver, CO, sharing my Bushveld Lessons™ keynotes and seminars with top teams and organisations, speaking primarily in the US and Canada.

Facilitator for Franklin-Covey Program & Feel Moved Enterprises Company

The African bush has a way of getting deep into one’s soul, and so in 2003 Heidi and I (and our firstborn child) moved back to my native South Africa in order to be close to the African bushveld again. Whilst establishing myself –essentially from scratch- as a speaker in the South African market, I worked for two years for Franklin-Covey (SA) as a contract Facilitator of their Seven Habits of Highly Effective People® program, and also founded my Feel Moved Enterprises company, under which I developed, marketed and distributed for seven years internationally a very successful range of humorous greeting cards using my own photographs of African wildlife.

Speaking business & Clients

I have been able to very successfully develop my speaking business whilst based in South Africa, and thanks to the Wright Brothers and technology, the world has become a very small place 🙂 My clients have included organizational giants on five continents, from NASA to Sony to Gartner.  I have spoken on the world’s biggest stages.  For my expertise –or perhaps my sins 🙂 – I appear on CNN. Over the years I’ve become known as The Big Cat Guy, and today I speak around the world on the potent life and high performance lessons specifically from these amazing super-predators that have been thriving for millennia in the face of change and competition. I genuinely love sharing my stories, photography, humor, and insights in a unique and powerful message to help and impact people’s lives.