TOOLS OF GREATNESS places enormous value on the principles of teamwork and ownership. As such our team stretches beyond the borders of employment to include individuals and organisations who enrich us with their strengths and who are remunerated by means of various profit-share agreements.
Janet du Preez
Engagement Protagonist
Founder and Visionary of TOOLS OF GREATNESS
Protagonist: The main character in a literary work or drama; A leading person in a contest; a principal performer; An advocate or champion of a cause, or course of action. en.wiktionary.org/wiki/protagonist
Janet du Preez is a passionate, provocative and creative thinker in the field of engagement who specialises in the development of innovative products and interventions which promote the effectiveness of individuals, teams, organisations and communities and enable the delivery of strategic imperatives.
Janet is uniquely qualified with masters level studies in health sciences, psychology and business, to understand the psychological and practical systems which underlie behaviour and outcomes. Her deep insight and treasure trove of resources, knowledge and experience have been garnered in personal learning and a range of positions in governmental, non-profit and volunteer organisations, small, medium and corporate businesses, service and trade enterprises, retail, financial and medical industries. In these settings Janet has distinguished herself by consistently delivering exceptional results. At the University of the Witwatersrand she won the Colonial Mutual Trophy for top first year student and the Jock Gear Memorial Award, the highest honour bestowed on a student completing the Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing and awarded for overall excellence in both academic and clinical aspects of her profession. She is consistently recognised for delivering the goods and raising the bar in every organisation she serves. In her wake she leaves expanded vision, effective systems, dramatically improved turnover, order from chaos, innovative programmes, new paradigms and engaged people.
A Gallup-trained Strengths Performance Consultant for individuals and teams, Janet is a strategic maximiser and engagement protagonist, constantly alert for good people, ideas and systems which can be made even more effective. She has a deep love for people and places huge value on their extraordinary individuality and synergistic potential. Her fascination with development and creativity drives her to utilise creative teaching and leadership techniques and to prize enjoyable and participative transformational experiences over formal unidirectional training and management approaches.
Janet is married to Jean-Michel du Preez, a labour consultant and alternative dispute resolution practitioner. They have 4 surviving children. She is the creative visionary and owner of TOOLS OF GREATNESS and is on the Academic Board and Faculty of the WORLDSVIEW ACADEMY FOR ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE. She has consulted with and trained clients from the Corrosion Institute, Private Health Administrators, KPMG, Sappi, BMW, Internet Solutions, Pick ‘n Pay, Sedibeng Municipality, Bayer, the IDC, Thebe Medical, Alexander Forbes and Bytes Management Solutions.
Janet is incredibly privileged to work with:
Hylton Gudmanz
Co-developer and Lead Facilitator for "Time Out" Men Breakaways
Hylton Gudmanz has been active in cross-cultural relationship-building and reconciliation initiatives since 1988. His B.A. in Communications and African Languages, and post-graduate Higher Diploma in Education led to four years as an Educator, before broadening his experience into the business arena.
He spent seven years with The Pacific Institute, South Africa, cutting his teeth as a facilitator of the international organisation's capacity-building curricula. He became one of only a handful of facilitators able to work strategically with executives and translate learnings throughout all levels of organisations. He became a Coach and Assessor of new facilitators in 2002, and also a Project Director, responsible for sales, relationship management and customer service on key accounts.
Fresh opportunities arose in 2005 with Dreambuilders, a management consultancy based in Durban. During his tenure, he consulted to blue-chip organisations regarding Leadership Development and Change Management. He was also a member of teams responsible for developing a ground-breaking youth programme for the Mr. Price Foundation, establishing graduate development processes for Sasol and induction processes for Wesbank.
Since 2007, Hylton has channelled his passion to see leaders thrive and this broad-based experience into his own consultancy; Focused People, where he continues to assist individuals and teams to align their functioning with their personal and strategic objectives.
In addition to his educational and business experience, Hylton also brings diversity to the “Time Out” Men programmes through his enjoyment of sport and his musical knowledge and talent. His superb people skills are a great asset in engaging participants and bringing cohesion to groups.
Ansie Vicente
Co-facilitator for "Me Time" Retreats
Ansie Vicente is a fulltime journalist of more than 20 years who has been teaching scrapbooking part-time for the last 8 years. She is the past publisher of Creative Reflections scrapbooking magazine, Threads & Crafts general crafts magazine and Crafts for Kids magazine, and is currently employed as editor-in-chief by Panorama Publications (Animaltalk is probably the magazine you know). She has a passion for teaching people to get in touch with their creative side and regularly offers classes for big groups, particularly as fund-raisers for causes close to her heart, mostly related to education and child and animal welfare. She lives with her husband and 13-year-old daughter in Randburg.
Dawid van den Bergh
Graphic Designer
Dawid van den Bergh, of Brio, is a talented and hard-working young designer who has done all our logos and the design work for the current range of B'zi Boxes. He did a 3 year diploma in Bloemfontein at a Graphic Design College called DCM(Digital Concept Management) where he studied both Print Design and Multimedia and developed a love for 3d animation. During 2008 he worked for a design studio in Joburg for 5 months and then started free-lancing in the beginning of 2009. He is currently working on incorporating animation into his designs using either Flash or 3D. He just loves making designs come to life!