Lionel J M H Bourgeois
Lionel started his career as a Trainee Customer Services Agent in the airline industry. Due to his positive attitude, his natural ability to deal with customers and his proficiency in four languages, he was sent to Paris to follow stringent customer relations training programmes to further develop his skills. He took on a middle management position in the Marketing and Public Relations Department soon after he completed a Marketing Management Diploma.
Earmarked as an asset in the sales field, Lionel was head hunted by two other foreign airline carriers to establish strong customer relation ties in their sales division.
Again head hunted by a prominent company based in Johannesburg, Lionel took up the post as General Manager for the sister company in Cape Town. Eager to take on this new challenge of marketing a relatively unknown product to the South African market, he employed and managed a strong, supportive and efficient team, which together, surpassed all expectations.
Some ten years later, with his wide practical knowledge of running businesses and his valuable experience in the customer relations, marketing and sales fields, he now follows his passion – developing all staff who are in contact with customers, irrespective of their position within their organization. His training methodology is hands on, easy to understand and is aimed at motivating people to understand the essence of people relations – that of respect. He feels very strongly that it is the ‘chemistry’ between two people or two companies that creates good business relationships.
VETTA Communication (Pty) Ltd was born to offer such training and also to inspire people to make a positive contribution to our growing nation.
Lionel has travelled the world in order to observe, learn and appreciate different cultures and people behaviours, and lives in Cape Town with his wife and daughter. He is a member of the Toastmasters Club and enjoys journal writing and Aikido in his spare time.
Barney Jordaan
Barney Jordaan holds a doctorate in law from Stellenbosch University and was admitted as an attorney of the Supreme Court of South Africa in 1982. He was professor of law at Stellenbosch University until 1997, when entered full-time practice as a specialist in the areas of employment law and labour relations, but later also in the areas of negotiation, mediation and conflict management.
He is currently professor extraordinaire at the Graduate School of Business of Stellenbosch University (USB) where he teaches on the MBA and executive education programmes and visiting lecturer at the Graduate School of Business of UCT. He also heads up the USB’s Africa Centre for Dispute Settlement. The Centre is an African hub for academic research, development and teaching of dispute settlement theory and practice.
Apart from his academic involvement, Barney is a director and co-founder of Maserumule Consulting, a leading firm of employment relations, employment law and organisational growth specialists, with offices in Cape Town and Johannesburg. He has presented the Juta Annual Labour Law Update for the past 12 years with some of the country’s leading labour lawyers.
He is a senior arbitrator and mediator, accredited with the International Mediation Institute in the Hague, and chair of the International Bar Association’s mediation across border sub-committee. He was recently appointed as part-time consultant to the World Bank Group’s Office of Mediation. During 1996-1999 he was part-time senior commissioner at the CCMA and part of the training panel for the first intake of commissioners. He appears regularly on regional and national radio and has published widely and is the author and co-author of a number of leading academic and popular works.
