Founder and CEO of LRMG, Ricky Robinson, has devoted his life and career to inviting teams and organisations to challenge themselves to stretch into their potential to enable growth and success.
In the last 25 years, Ricky's entrepreneurial spirit, strategic insight and business acumen have played an important role in growing LRMG into a high-performance company with long-term client partnerships built on credibility, trust and growth.
Today, LRMG employs more than 350 people who innovate, test, refine and deploy solutions internally first before taking it to client environments to help ignite success in people and organisations across Africa.
Ricky's believes that "success is less about being a performer and more about performing; less about the podium and more about the progress. True, sustainable success is a combination of mindset, perspective, effort and self-leadership. It is an ongoing journey."

Michael is a technology enthusiast with experience in helping organisations digitally enable high performance. He takes an agnostic approach to digital with a passion to influence the performance of people and organisations. Over the years, Michael has been fortunate to strategically partner with some of Africa’s largest organisations in delivering digital learning solutions to their employees and is a motivated learning innovator with over 15 years of human capital specialisation and expertise in relationship management, solution architecture and the nurturing of a high-performance culture - a sharp thinker known for fearlessly tackling challenging business problems that our partners and clients seek to solve.

Until recently, Alishia was the face of BusinessDay TV's flagship markets and business shows The Close and Stockwatch and has also been a senior news anchor at CNBC Africa, presenting the Africa News Report on Sky News. Spanning a career of over 15 years, she has gained a wealth of experience in financial journalism with a sound grasp of financial markets, economic data, company news and current affairs issues and the impact it all has on doing business and investing in SA, and the investment landscape at large. This comes to the fore in her conversations with some of the most influential personalities, thought and industry leaders, CEOs and political leaders where she delves into the finer detail of the stories making business news headlines.

Coupled with her experience in front of the camera, Alishia serves as a, MC, Panel Discussion Moderator and Programme Director, as well as Media Training Facilitator. Some of her career highlights include attending and reporting from the Annual World Economic Forum in Davos and WEF

Monicah is the Group Director of Human Resources at NCBA Group Plc and has 25 years of experience in the financial services industry. Monicah holds a master’s degree in Business Administration - Strategic Management, Human Resources and Marketing.

Prior to her appointment as Group Director HR & Culture at NCBA Bank, Monicah held various roles and worked in various countries within Citi. She is a Certified Executive Coach (Academy of Executive Coaching UK) and was crowned as the Director of HR for the Year 2019 by the Institute of Human Resources Management (IHRM) in Kenya – an achievement she is most proud of.

Monicah is driven by her personal Mantra ‘PDL’, that each person has a God given purpose, which they must seek to find and use to make a difference in their sphere of influence and leave a Legacy for the future generation. Her personal brand stands for Excellence, Integrity and Purpose.

When Monicah is not at NCBA Bank developing people solutions, you will find her in the gym enjoying a workout or out and about bonding with her beautiful family. She is married to Kihia and together they are blessed with three wonderfully and fearfully created adult children Muthoni, Mwangi and Shiro.

As a keynote speaker at LRMG’s Big Summit Talent Festival, Monicah will share NCBA Bank’s culture and change journey as various teams came together after a merger. As part of the shift to this new identity, values and behaviours, the Go-Getter Culture initiative took shape and provided a values-based roadmap, equipping leaders and teams to successfully make the transition - feeling that they belong, can make a meaningful contribution, and are valued. Key to the success of the journey was the implementation of a digital learning experience platform to build and develop skills at the speed of business.

Derek is passionate about inspiring others to see the big picture - inspiring and engaging teams and individuals to perform beyond expectation. In his role at Liquid Intelligent Technologies, Derek aligned and integrated executive teams across 14 African countries - with fibre and data centres from the Cape to Cairo - to improve P&L numbers through executive performance management, corporate calendar implementation and leadership development. This is a complex culture transformation on a continental scale.

As a keynote speaker at LRMG’s Big Summit Talent Festival, Derek shares an exciting story about the transformation and acceleration of the sales function following a recent merger. Key to the new sales optimisation strategy would be the alignment of processes and systems, and the creation of a new, customer-centric mindset to boost sales growth and ensure competitive advantage.

Caitlin Tudhope is a registered Industrial/Organisational Psychologist, and is Head of Talent Management, Learning, Remuneration, Rewards and Shared Services at Telesure Investment Holdings (TIH). She is passionate about finding innovative and people-centric solutions in the ever-changing world of work. Over the past 4 years, Caitlin and her team have designed and implemented OD, Talent and HR solutions, including a new Performance Engagement framework and a digitised rewards process and platform for the TIH Group. 

As a keynote speaker at LRMG’s Big Summit Talent Festival, Caitlin will share how the TIH People Team collaborated to build and implement a new Performance Engagement philosophy, methodology and technology.

Yolanda is passionate, determined and intentional about all things L&D and Talent. She is a thought leader in this space and has shifted environments because of her innovative mindset and natural inclination to disrupt and try new things. She understands that the real value for business through L&D is achieved with collaboration and partnerships in the organisation to drive an aligned vision. Being well-read and keeping abreast of what’s happening and how Talent enables an organisation's competitive edge - locally and globally - sets Yolanda apart and ensures that her personal and professional visions are aligned.

As a keynote speaker at LRMG’s Big Summit Talent Festival, Yolanda will share insights on how Nedbank is successfully changing the TD Ecosystem to enable their strategic aspirations to be more client-focused, more agile, more digital, and more competitive, igniting a learning ecosystem that enables a culture of self-owned, life-long learning.

Yandri Pienaar’s passion for transforming good organisations into great ones through the development of people has contributed largely to Moyo’s exceptional market reputation - one of the key reasons why the company has been able to attract and retain top talent. As the proverbial “lighthouse keeper” at Moyo, Yandri’s role encompasses every aspect of an employee’s work-life cycle. From talent management, coaching and mentoring to leadership and career development, Yandri and her team of HR professionals continue to build a workplace where employee morale is highly regarded and nurtured, while driving efficiency and excellence at all levels of the organisation.

As a keynote speaker at LRMG’s Big Summit Talent Festival, Yandri will share insights on how Moyo successfully created the perfect fusion of their people and systems landscape to deliver the HR Information System (HRIS), now proudly called ‘MyMoyo’. Creating new levels of intracompany collaboration, performance and engagement, ‘MyMoyo’ is a success story worth sharing.

Cougen oversees local and international operations for IBL Seafood and logistics. He is passionate about leading a happy and engaged team for a sustainable approach to doing business. He views the value of the seafood industry as an important contributor to the Mauritius economy due to its ability to provide active employment to a large portion of this island country’s population and generates forex earnings for the country. It follows then that talent attraction, development and growth are key focus areas to ensure world-class day-to-day operations that sustain, improve and grow the business – now, and into the future.

As a keynote speaker at LRMG’s Big Summit Talent Festival, Cougen will share the story of how IBL Seafood adopted the Good to Great principles to help build a company worthy of lasting – and a tribe culture where leaders behave within an agreed framework of strong ties to values, beliefs and common goals with people being at the centre of all doings. Leaders are geared and ready to grow people, build legacy and maintain qualitative leadership. Along with building capability around 6 future-fit competencies, the role of the leader is shaping of a leadership identity which is a key factor to the success of achieving the required performance and transformation needed at all times to stay relevant in a world-wide competitive environment.

Elmarie is a seasoned human resources practitioner with broad HR experience at a senior level. She is a collaborative team player with a track record of delivering the highest quality work and is passionate about the development of employees at all levels to reach their full potential. In her time at Ford, Elmarie designed and launched a ground-breaking Graduate Programme which is delivering incredible results and helping to build a legacy, while strengthening her belief that talent development is critical to the future success of Ford and South Africa.

As a keynote speaker at LRMG’s Big Summit Talent Festival, Elmarie will share the inspiring story of how she shaped an innovative and practical Graduate Programme that is making a positive contribution to the future of the business, the talent within the programme, and the country. Cleverly integrating real-world skills into the Programme to ensure workplace readiness, this talent pool is finding success and making their contributions in permanent roles across the business.

Alison Visagie’s background in HR, change and transformation has shaped her mission to help leaders and individuals perform to their highest points of contribution and make transformation a reality at SANBS. She is passionate about building and maintaining a high-performance culture by ensuring that talent and change initiatives are focused on strengthening the depth of leadership and nurturing talent.

As a keynote speaker at LRMG’s Big Summit Talent Festival, Alison will share insights on how SANBS successfully executed a Culture programme that engaged and empowered their leadership team, and ignited a positive shift in their organisational culture, ensuring readiness alignment across all levels of the organisation.

Mark Onisk, Chief Content Officer (USA), responsible for leading all aspects of Skillsoft's content catalogue, strategic direction, roadmap and development. Mark previously served as SVP of Skillsoft Books, successfully launching the company's book summary product, increasing the audiobook collection by more than 60%, and creating the largest collection of audiobooks in the corporate learning market.

Matthew Glitzer is currently the Global Head of Regional Sales at Skillsoft. He most recently served as Vice President, Security Sales, IBM Americas where he was responsible for all security related products and services.

A transformational business executive with over 20 years’ experience in enterprise sales leadership, operational and P&L management and strategic alliances across the technology landscape, including enterprise software, Cloud, IT outsourcing and infrastructure services, Matt previously served as Vice President, IBM’s Integrated Security Business Unit, Asia Pacific, where he was responsible for security software sales and services. His field of expertise includes, inter alia, Cloud and digital transformation strategy, global enterprise sales leadership, strategic outsourcing contract management, pre-sales, sales and post-sales operations and mega-deal strategy and negotiation.

Matt holds a B.S. in Political Science from Rutgers College and a Masters in Business Administration from the George Washington University.  He holds a certification from IBM’s Harvard Business School Certification Program and is a graduate of IBM’s Master Deal Making program through the Wharton School of Business.

He currently lives in Cary, North Carolina with his wife Colleen and two of their four children. In his leisure time, Matt enjoys cooking, entertaining, and is an avid tennis player.

Michael Baker is the Group VP Sales and Account Management EMEA at Cornerstone OnDemand. Michael leads the strategy and execution for client acquisition, expansion and retention in EMEA, ensuring that clients and prospects are successfully navigating HR digital transformation within their organisations by providing solutions to attract, onboard, develop and retain the talent they need to thrive in the skills economy. Michael manages EMEA-wide teams across the business, their functionality, developing strategic plans to support business growth and profitability. He understands the cultural and business challenges presented in growing a multi-national business.

Linda is an executive consultant to LRMG and the Learning Innovator for Blue Pebble Consulting, a niche global consulting and strengths-based coaching company.

She brings over 25 years of experience in many Talent roles across corporate and vendors in multiple geographies, spanning a range of industries, including telco, mining, finance, retail and IT OEM certification.

Linda enjoys collaborating with clients who believe technology will fundamentally change how they deliver talent solutions to burning struggles, and partners as the strategic lead on projects with global players in the employee experience and the learning ecosystem. She often asks the ‘tough questions’ and adds the phrase; “…from my experience…for the success of these digital transformation projects, the talent function needs to be reimagined.”

Managing Director and Senior Partner of LRMG, Irwin van Stavel dreams of finding unique ways to make people more effective when working together, to create greater organisations and a greater nation. Through his personal journey, Irwin has learned that one person can make a significant difference in many people's lives. He builds on this belief daily as he works towards igniting people for growth in every aspect of their lives.

Irwin manages the Learning & Talent and Africa Resellers business units at LRMG. In this position he is constantly expanding our ability to reach people, teach people and develop people. His teams strive to find new and innovative ways to make people achieve future fitness through smart learning and talent ecosystems in their working environments, thereby growing their organisations. Irwin also ensures that his teams are backed by solid partnerships with world leaders in the people development space through nurturing great relationships with international industry leaders.

Irwin qualified as an Educator and began his career by expanding young minds. He then moved into various HR and L&D positions where he handled the strategic management and consulting portfolios of many ‘blue chip' organisations. In 2003, he then sold his successful custom courseware consulting business to LRMG to take on an executive role on the LRMG Board at the of age 28, where he grew the business to become the leading courseware development team in Africa. It is in this position that Irwin established himself as a respected thought leader in the industry. His 23-year track record of growing small businesses into leading brands has positioned him well to work strategically with over 300 organisations to help them design more effective people, talent management and technology strategies so that they can maximise their performance and investment in their human capital.

Irwin believes that engagement is everything.

My passion is proving value and impact from technology implementations, being able to link projects with actual bottom line impacts for every size organisation in our market. Technology brings with it such amazing enablers, and taking HR from transactional to strategic is my ambition and life purpose.

With over 10 years’ experience implementing Cornerstone's talent and learning technologies in and around Africa, including m-Learning, e-Learning, Learning, LXP, Performance, Succession, Compensation, Recruitment Management and HRIS platforms. Additionally, with content development going hand in hand with Talent Development systems, I have been fortunate enough to be involved intricately with this element of the value chain as well.

Over and above taking the Cornerstone suite of products to market, we have a dedicated team of Implementation Consultants as well as Technical Support resources per product within the business, thus allowing us to work with local and international clients in a more efficient and value adding manner.

Until recently, Alishia was the face of BusinessDay TV's flagship markets and business shows The Close and Stockwatch and has also been a senior news anchor at CNBC Africa, presenting the Africa News Report on Sky News. Spanning a career of over 15 years, she has gained a wealth of experience in financial journalism with a sound grasp of financial markets, economic data, company news and current affairs issues and the impact it all has on doing business and investing in SA, and the investment landscape at large. This comes to the fore in her conversations with some of the most influential personalities, thought and industry leaders, CEOs and political leaders where she delves into the finer detail of the stories making business news headlines.

Coupled with her experience in front of the camera, Alishia serves as a, MC, Panel Discussion Moderator and Programme Director, as well as Media Training Facilitator. Some of her career highlights include attending and reporting from the Annual World Economic Forum in Davos and WEF

Founder and CEO of LRMG, Ricky Robinson, has devoted his life and career to inviting teams and organisations to challenge themselves to stretch into their potential to enable growth and success.
In the last 25 years, Ricky's entrepreneurial spirit, strategic insight and business acumen have played an important role in growing LRMG into a high-performance company with long-term client partnerships built on credibility, trust and growth.
Today, LRMG employs more than 350 people who innovate, test, refine and deploy solutions internally first before taking it to client environments to help ignite success in people and organisations across Africa.
Ricky's believes that "success is less about being a performer and more about performing; less about the podium and more about the progress. True, sustainable success is a combination of mindset, perspective, effort and self-leadership. It is an ongoing journey."

Award-winning mountaineer, expedition leader, author

Zambian-born Saray Khumalo is an award-winning mountaineer, expedition leader and author who provides world-class transformational coaching to entrepreneurs, executives, business professionals and sales teams across the globe.

As an experienced business executive, she has a solid track record in some of South Africa’s leading financial institutions as an eCommerce and Loyalty Specialist, and delivers keynote talks that are aimed at moving her audience forward on topics relating to resilience, leadership, Women in Business, peak performance, a healthy mindset, and wellbeing.

In her recently published book, My Journey to the Top of the World, Saray shares her remarkable story. In 2019, on her fourth attempt, she summited Mount Everest, becoming the first Black African woman to do so, despite severe personal setbacks, serious health issues and life-threatening injuries.

As a Nelson Mandela Libraries ambassador and founder of Summits with a Purpose, an initiative that has raised funds and built physical and digital libraries in disadvantaged African schools, Saray believes that literacy and education has the power to change the narrative for the next generation.

Her business excellence and relentless mountaineering spirit have been widely recognised, receiving accolades such as the 2020 Woman of Stature Award in the Sports category, and the GSPORT Woman of the Year award in 2019.

Saray’s story does not end with Everest. She is on a journey to complete the Explorer’s Grand Slam – a challenge to reach the North Pole, the South Pole and all Seven Summits.

https://saraykhumalo.com/explorers-grand-slam

John Kostoulas is a Vice President Analyst at Gartner’s HR Practice, focused on the intersection of people, work and technologies. John supports hundreds of HR, IT and other business leaders on technology strategies and decisions related to important priorities such as employee experience (EX), diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), business and talent agility, and the future of work. John conducts regular research and is a regular speaker on these topics. He also advises related technology and service providers of various sizes - from start-up to established - on market trends and product strategies/roadmaps.

Ravika Bandyopadhyay, head of people development at Sanlam, says that the modern world is characterised by accelerated change, technological advancement and evolving customer expectations. “We operate in a knowledge economy where skills have an exponentially shrinking shelf-life, where lifelong learning has become an economic imperative. The biggest competitive differentiator in the future will be an agile, skilled workforce of continuous learners.” Sanlam believes an agile and skilled workforce that can adapt and innovate will be its biggest competitive differentiator in the future.

As a keynote speaker at LRMG’s Big Summit Talent Festival, Ravika will share insights on how Sanlam designed a digitally driven learning landscape to deliver competitive advantage for the organisation - and its people - helping to build capacity and a learning culture that will ensure the business succeeds today and in the future.

Those who love words such as growth, investing in self and others, development opportunities and learning, would be great admirers of Botsepegi Motau. She has spent 81% of her 30-year career in the People Development space.

Botsepegi started her working career as an Administrator at the Standard Bank Recruitment Centre whilst studying Civil Law part-time at UNISA. Being a passionate, focused and purpose-led individual, she entered the Learning and Development environment, impacting many lives of Standard Bank employees over 19 years.

Regarded as top talent during her follow-up 8 years at ABSA Bank, she was nominated for a 3-year Leadership Accelerated Development (ALD) programme. An opportunity to benchmark some of ABSA’s people development practices in Miami, New York and Mexico broadened her scope regarding people development philosophies and methodologies, especially with regards to learning platforms and systems.

As a seasoned practitioner in this domain, Botsepegi and her team deliver challenging Skills Development Programmes for Santam Group. Her current portfolio includes:

• Skills Development Academy
• Accredited Broker and Staff Insurance Training
• FAIS Fit & Proper
• Bursary Programme and Study Aid Support
• Regulatory and Compliance
• SD Target Setting, Tracking and Reporting

As a keynote speaker at LRMG’s Big Summit Talent Festival, Botsepegi will share insights on how the organisation objectively reviewed and reinvented themselves to ensure a successful and innovative Graduate Programme at Santam.

Alisha is a strategic, innovative thinker who creates operational efficiencies through the successful integration of people, process and technology in order to enhance productivity and profitability.
Alisha holds an MBA, which she graduated with distinction (and at the top of her class!). Her areas of expertise include strategy, operations, people, marketing and events, direct marketing, sales, customer services and call centre (inbound and outbound) management. She is passionate about connecting with people, unlocking potential and moving people towards high performance and personal success.

As a keynote speaker at LRMG’s Big Summit Talent Festival, Alisha will share AB InBev’s unique leadership experience journey. This innovative, digital approach was designed to embed leadership identities across AB InBev’s African footprint, as they worked to build ‘Great Leaders who want to create and leave a “Leadership Legacy”’. A fascinating use of storytelling - combined with digital engagement strategies deployed over time - helped leaders to explore and build leadership habits that would forge new behaviours as they bring AB InBev’s 5 leadership identities to life.

A seasoned learning and development professional with a particular focus on pipeline development with over 25 years of experience in the industry, May, as she is popularly known, is skilled across the entire learning value chain. From designing and content creation, to facilitation and programme management, May’s vast experience across several industries has made her one of the most recognised voices in the Skills Development & Youth Development landscape in South Africa.

A sought-after speaker, she has presented locally and internationally on the subject of developing young talent, an area she is particularly passionate about. May is credited with starting learnerships at the Standard Bank Group. With just over 8000 unemployed youth enrolled on learnership programmes between 2008 and 2022, May is immensely proud of the fact that 5% of the current staff at Standard Bank South Africa started their careers via a learnership.

Currently, she is freelancing as a consultant, facilitator and coach. She is deeply passionate about the potential of Africa, nurturing the talent to fundamentally change the narrative of Africa across the globe, and change its trajectory so that it can take its rightful place on the world stage.

May has three qualifications to her name: a Diploma in Industrial

David is a global thought leader who has for 30 years specialised in helping C-Suite executives understand how to maximise the ROI from spend on Employee recognition and reward as well as sales and performance incentives. His company, Uwin Iwin, is the service business that then implements and executes with senior management highly successful, award-winning incentives and reward programs.

Potoula Chresomales is the SVP of Product Management (USA) as she manages a portfolio of corporate e-learning products and the design and launch of the award-winning learning experience platform, Percipio. Before Skillsoft, Potoula worked as VP Product Management at Kaplan Test Prep, responsible for managing digital products that serve students in test prep and professional licensing programs.

As the head of L&D at Zanaco, a leading bank in Zambia, Joseph is passionate about the upliftment and development of people. He strives to build an innovative, people-centric, digital learning culture at Zanaco, and is one of the pioneers that led the way for the adoption of digital learning across the bank – countrywide. Joseph plays a pivotal role in helping teams transition to digital learning as part of their talent development initiatives, ensuring strategic alignment of training and people performance needs.

As a keynote speaker at LRMG’s Big Summit Talent Festival, Joseph has thought-provoking insights to share about how Zanaco refocused their learning strategy to one that is more agile, cost-effective and accessible to all. His story highlights incredible ‘aha’ moments around key milestones such as onboarding and launching digital learning to learners, nurturing partnerships with various role players across the bank, and building and maintaining a compelling and relevant learning catalogue of courses to keep everyone engaged on the learning journey.

Vincent Belliveau is Chief International Officer for Cornerstone. He is responsible for overseeing all of Cornerstone’s EMEA and APJ operations including sales and marketing, implementation, services and support. Vincent joined Cornerstone in 2007 and has built the company’s very successful EMEA business essentially from scratch.

Prior to joining Cornerstone OnDemand, Belliveau served as the North East Europe Director of IBM’s Master Data Management (MDM) and Information Integration Solutions. Vincent also served as IBM’s EMEA Sales Director for WebSphere Product Center Software (formerly known as Trigo), where he grew the client base, developed key routes to markets and increased license sales. Prior to that, Belliveau honed his management consulting and business analysis skills while at McKinsey & Company.

Vincent received his Commerce Baccalaureate (B.Com) from McGill University, where he majored in accounting and finance. He is fluent in English, French and Spanish. Vincent currently resides in Paris, France with his family.

Until recently, Alishia was the face of BusinessDay TV's flagship markets and business shows The Close and Stockwatch and has also been a senior news anchor at CNBC Africa, presenting the Africa News Report on Sky News. Spanning a career of over 15 years, she has gained a wealth of experience in financial journalism with a sound grasp of financial markets, economic data, company news and current affairs issues and the impact it all has on doing business and investing in SA, and the investment landscape at large. This comes to the fore in her conversations with some of the most influential personalities, thought and industry leaders, CEOs and political leaders where she delves into the finer detail of the stories making business news headlines.

Coupled with her experience in front of the camera, Alishia serves as a, MC, Panel Discussion Moderator and Programme Director, as well as Media Training Facilitator. Some of her career highlights include attending and reporting from the Annual World Economic Forum in Davos and WEF

Founder and CEO of LRMG, Ricky Robinson, has devoted his life and career to inviting teams and organisations to challenge themselves to stretch into their potential to enable growth and success.
In the last 25 years, Ricky's entrepreneurial spirit, strategic insight and business acumen have played an important role in growing LRMG into a high-performance company with long-term client partnerships built on credibility, trust and growth.
Today, LRMG employs more than 350 people who innovate, test, refine and deploy solutions internally first before taking it to client environments to help ignite success in people and organisations across Africa.
Ricky's believes that "success is less about being a performer and more about performing; less about the podium and more about the progress. True, sustainable success is a combination of mindset, perspective, effort and self-leadership. It is an ongoing journey."