Four pillars, in depth.
Coaching, advisory, research, and film. The order matters: coaching opens the door, and the rest follows. Each pillar is bespoke, sized to the brief, and shaped by who is in the room.
Research supervision and academic development, with a strong neurodivergent-aware practice.
Coaching is the work I love most, and the entry point to the rest of the practice. It runs the full life of an academic project: idea clarification, proposal development, literature review, methodology design, fieldwork support, academic writing, thesis structure, and the publication trajectory that follows.
What sets this coaching apart is that it is taught by someone who is finishing their own doctorate now, in a difficult substantive area, while running an independent practice. The pedagogy is informed by that lived experience, and by an explicit commitment to neurodivergent-aware practice that takes how researchers actually work seriously, rather than how they are supposed to work.
Who it’s for
- Postgraduate students working on theses, dissertations, or research papers
- Executives and professionals returning to academic study or undertaking research-based qualifications
- Mature students returning to research after time away
- Independent researchers, scholars, and learners
What it covers
- Idea formation and research question development
- Proposal writing and ethics applications
- Literature review structure and execution
- Methodology design, qualitative and mixed methods
- Academic writing across the thesis lifecycle
- AI for researchers: practical, ethical, evidence-led
- Publication strategy and journal submission
Bespoke teaching and mentorship, by theme.
All masterclass and short-course offerings are bespoke, shaped to the learner or organisation and informed by the four themes the practice keeps returning to: media and democracy, participation and voice, storytelling and impact, and listening and institutional practice. Postgraduate research supervision is a particular area. Neurodivergent learners are a special interest, with pedagogy designed accordingly.
- One-to-one coaching Ongoing
- Postgraduate supervision By arrangement
- Masterclasses and short courses Bespoke
- Webinars Open or commissioned
- In-house programmes Universities, civil society
Strategic communications for democratic institutions, civil society, and public-interest media.
Advisory work draws on three decades of practical communications experience, including the establishment of Parliament’s first multimedia unit and a recent term as the African National Congress’s National Communications Manager during the 2024 elections and the formation of the Government of National Unity. It is grounded in the substantive realities of how democratic institutions actually communicate, fail to communicate, and recover when things go wrong.
The work spans strategy design, programme leadership, and commissioned thought partnership. Recent and current clients include the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, the Democracy Works Foundation, the Northern Cape Provincial Legislature, Tshisimani Centre for Activist Education, the Fort Calata Foundation, and the United Nations Development Programme.
Scope
- Communications strategy and advocacy design
- Public participation and consultation programmes
- Crisis and reputation work for mission-aligned organisations
- Editorial leadership on annual reports, legacy publications, and stakeholder content
- Curriculum development for advocacy and negotiation training
- Commissioned public speaking and keynote engagements
Commissioned studies, collaborative research, scholarly practice.
The research pillar is where the practice meets the academy. It covers commissioned studies for civil society and public institutions, collaborative academic research, peer-reviewed publication, and the ongoing scholarly practice that frames everything else the practice does.
Recent work includes convening and writing the Communication chapter of the South Africa Covid-19 Country Report across both editions (2020 to 2025), a peer-reviewed national research output produced through the Presidency, DPME, GTAC, and the NRF. Earlier work includes commissioned research on community television broadcasting for the Media Development and Diversity Agency.
Areas of focus
- Institutional information integrity and democratic accountability
- Public participation frameworks and deliberative democracy
- Media diversity, viability, and policy
- Documentary film as research dissemination methodology
- Decolonial approaches to institutional analysis
- Global South perspectives on democratic dysfunction
Open to
- Commissioned research and policy studies
- Collaborative academic projects and co-authorship
- Postdoctoral and visiting researcher placements (from late 2026)
- Peer review and editorial work
Documentary and impact production at the service of democratic life.
The film pillar continues a thirty-year producing practice across independent and broadcast documentary. Selected titles include Forgotten Gold, Mr Devious: My Life, Biko’s Children, Deafening Echoes, and the Ikon South Africa series, a long-running South African and Swedish collaboration that produced more than thirty short films across three SABC seasons.
Current work centres on documentary as a method of research, transitional justice, archive recovery, and the public-interest stories that democratic life depends on. Recent production includes the Thina Sizwe Film and Archive Project for the Fort Calata Foundation, an audiovisual archive project from Cradock in the Eastern Cape.
What I take on
- Producing and executive production roles on documentary and impact projects
- Archive recovery and curation for institutions and foundations
- Commissioned short films for civil society and public institutions
- Research-led documentary in the climate, wildlife and nature space (a growing area)