Pétanque welcomes Yvonne as our newly appointed non-exec director to the team. We're not only happy to be able to work with her as she's an outspokenly warm and enthousiastic person, but she also brings a wealth of experience to Pétanque.

Born and educated in the UK, Yvonne left England to teach English Language, English Literature, Spoken English and Drama in Zambia. Four years later she was approached to join an office equipment company as part of the sales training team. The following year she was promoted to National Sales and Marketing Manager.

She came to South Africa in 1978 to join the American Corporation, Kree International (a company specialising in hair removal) as their General Manager for South Africa. This led to her appointment as General Manager for the South African operation of the American company, the Glemby Corporation, (the largest chain of hair salons in the world) three years later when she initiated the amalgamation of the two companies. Promotion to Managing Director for South Africa and a Senior Vice President on the Glemby International American Board came early in 1984. She spearheaded formal ethnic hair training in SA and set up three training academies for the corporation (two in hair and one in beauty therapy).

The Regis Corporation acquired worldwide interest in the company in 1990 and Yvonne left in mid 1994 to pursue a different career interest. She joined the two Bunker brothers in June 1994 to open Music Direct (South Africa’s first mail order CD club) and was responsible for the complete operational start-up of the company. Headhunted to join BlitzFoil (Pty) Ltd on a two year contract as CEO in January 1999 she was responsible for introducing this unique foiling system to the International arena and setting up distribution and training networks.

She started independent business consulting mid 2001 assisting companies with marketing, sales, business plans, strategic change including all staff training. During this period she developed a series of business skills development training programmes that were offered to the clients of one of her clients, GG Accounting. In December 2003 she joined forces with eveology network with the specific goal of putting together programmes to assist women to start up or reposition their businesses. Then in January 2005 she aligned with Insights Africa to expand the “Profile 4” programme she had developed using the Insights Discovery Profile as a base, and to date has assisted over 400 previously disadvantaged women to run their businesses more effectively, some of these as a selection component for the Women’s Entrepreneurial Programme (WEP) for the World Bank. This has included women running very small rural enterprises to assisting women who have been in business a number of years.

Her observations during this period formed the base for a paper “The Status Quo of Women in Business”, which she was invited to deliver accompanying the Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry on her fact finding road show during 2006. This paper also formed the base for the key note address she gave to open the 5th International Entrepreneurial Conference in October 2006 at UCT.

Through her ongoing work with individual coaching and team development, she has been able to evaluate the way the personality impacts (both positively and negatively) on performance, which offers an additional benefit to participants in her skills development workshops.

Her client base includes, Petro SA, CEO Holdings, 360 Outsourcing, Ernst and Young, ABSA Bank, Nedbank, Lion Sands and a variety of small and medium size businesses and individuals seeking support.

Member of the Businesswomen's Association of South Africa – National Vice President 2003 - 2007
Voluntarily facilitates the Small Business Club for the Cape Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry
Board Member for WESGRO 2004 AND 2005
Member of the National Small Business Advisory Council to the Minister for Trade and Industry

She MC’s business events and gives workshops and presentations. Has written and delivered a variety of papers on female upliftment, “Women the Untapped Resource”, “How Women Network – or Don’t” , “The Power of Networking”, “The Status Quo of Women in Business in 2005” . Her article “Skills for Great Leadership” was published in the magazine Women Inc in April 2006 and “The Stiletto Ceiling” was published in the BWA magazine in April 2007.

She is married with one son and loves the theatre.