I — Personal & professional story

In the Making

A little about me

A culture kid from Johannesburg.
Still curious. Still becoming.

Growing up in Johannesburg, I always sensed that my path would lead me into a creative field. What I didn’t anticipate was where it would take me: from exploring design and strategy at university to building a business, collaborating with leading organisations, and working at the intersection of creativity, communication and organisational change.

At university, I began to see design as more than aesthetics and strategy as more than spreadsheets. Both were ways of understanding problems, challenging assumptions and imagining better possibilities. That perspective took me beyond traditionally creative industries, from agriculture to banking.

For me, design thinking starts with asking better questions, understanding people and identifying the real problem. The human-centred methods pioneered by IDEO have been an important influence: empathy, experimentation and strategic thinking belong in the same room.

01 / The entrepreneurial chapter

Building something. Learning everything.

Building and running a marketing agency was an education well beyond the work itself. Entrepreneurship taught me to navigate uncertainty, build relationships and take responsibility for the many moving parts behind a creative business: operations, people, clients, partnerships, and the distance between a good idea and making it happen.

While I valued building something from the ground up, I found myself increasingly drawn to the thinking behind the work: understanding challenges, connecting ideas and shaping narratives. Closing a business I’d invested so much of myself in was more than a professional transition. It was a chance to reconsider what I wanted next.

02 / A change of scenery

Then came Cape Town.

Moving from Johannesburg to the coast shifted more than my postcode. It gave me space to step outside familiar routines, experience a different pace and reconsider what I wanted from my career and everyday life.

Starting again in a new city invites you to see yourself with fresh eyes. For me, it’s been a period of recalibration: making room for new experiences, rediscovering curiosity and approaching the future with more openness.

2026 —

Corporate Period

Senior Creative Strategist & Open>Studio Lead

Open Communications Group

At Open Communications Group in Cape Town, I work at the intersection of business, creativity and human-centred design — helping good ideas come to life. I wear a few hats: strategist, creative advisor, consultant and digital enabler, merging multiple principles and human-centric insights to deliver results. Alongside a team of experts who are equal parts smart, kind and cool, I help organisations turn challenges into clear strategies, ideas and experiences.

Senior Creative Strategist
I help make good ideas come to life. Wearing a few hats that include strategist, creative advisor, consultant and digital enabler. Merging multiple principles and human-centric insights to deliver results.
Open>Studio lead
Leading Open>Studio — creative on demand, partnering with clients to scale content and campaigns with speed and consistency, and exploring commercial opportunities across Southern Africa and Europe.

Career timeline

2019 — 2025
Entrepreneurial Period
Co-led a resource-based marketing agency specialising in brand development, marketing strategy and multiplatform communication — plus digital platforms including mobile apps for internal resource sharing.
- Co-Founder & Head of Operations
  ID8 Collab
  Collaborative strategy, creative direction across every touchpoint, multiple creative teams, brand, social, web, tactical campaigns and digital platform management.
2016 — 2018
Developmental Period
- Ideation Facilitator
  Standard Bank
  Co-led a Design Thinking workshop with the CIB team, inspiring corporate strategists to think more empathetically and creatively.
- Senior Graphic Designer
  Atomic Marketing
  Led the design team on campaign development and execution for Bosch, Nutribullet & Häagen-Dazs.
- Freelance Graphic Designer
  YFM
  Digital content, ad-hoc experiential design and brand activation with the internal marketing team.
- Brand Workshop Facilitator
  ABSA
  Co-led a CSR workshop for underprivileged women for a Women’s Day campaign — brand building, creative problem solving and start-up strategy.
2011 — 2015
Educational Period
BA in Visual Communication and BA Honours in Brand Leadership at Vega School of Advertising — with live briefs for PepsiCo and Grant Thornton.
- Intern
  Ogilvy Johannesburg
  Design shadowing on the KFC account.
- Intern
  Between 10 and 5
  Office admin, digital publishing and basic design execution.
- Freelance Graphic Designer
  JANA + KOOS
  Layouts, identity, pattern and multiplatform design for Superbalist and Simon & Mary.
- Freelance Art Director
  Uber
  Creative direction of an Ice Cream Day video campaign with Paul’s Homemade Ice Cream.
- Think Tank Ideator
  Castle Light & Amstel Gold
  Design-thinking workshop with SAB decision makers on packaging innovation.
- Ideator
  A Popular Bunch
  Experiential and pop-up retail touchpoints for Hendrick’s Gin and Sandton City.
- Ideator
  Exclusive Books
  Brand innovation and customer-centric strategy with Vega students and the Exclusive Books creative team.

Still becoming

Not a finished version. A work in progress.

My career hasn’t followed a straight line. It has moved between creative practice, entrepreneurship, leadership and consulting, each chapter introducing new questions and changing how I see the world.

That’s what In the Making is about: documenting what I learn, what I question, what I leave behind and what I choose to explore next. I’m interested in the spaces where disciplines meet, and where creativity helps people make sense of complexity.

For now, you’ll find me in Cape Town, working at Open and discovering what happens when strategy, creativity and a genuine interest in people come together.