Over 45 years in South Africa's national government sector - from frontline recruitment and HR leadership to specialist security and intelligence advisory work, and ultimately a senior national-level Security Advisor role.
My career spanned both sides of the profession.
• Offense: counter-intelligence specialist in operational collection and analysis roles, identifying and countering threats to the state.
• Defense: helped build and maintain the protective security shield around personnel, information and state assets - locally and in postings abroad.
Highlights from four and a half decades in the field:
• Helped develop a security standards framework later adopted as official government policy
• Led a Cabinet-approved turnaround strategy for a national security directorate
• Played a direct role in the security planning and protection of major events hosted on South African soil, including continental and international summits and a presidential inauguration
• Briefed senior government structures on specialist security topics at the highest levels of decision-making
• Coordinated the relocation and security upgrade of national offices abroad
• Led recruitment programmes that brought talent into the organisation at scale
I now run Learnya Skills Academy, building practical, no-fluff courses for Udemy in security, vetting, risk and workplace safety.
Everything I teach is drawn directly from decades of real operational and advisory experience - not theory, not guesswork. If it would not have worked in the environments I came from, it does not go into my courses.
