The story thus far

Richard Joseph Rogers is a dynamic

and innovative professional with a flair
for entrepreneurship, who comes alive
when new ideas are been put to the
table. Richards interests lie in
business growth, training and
development, writing, Information
technology and strategic management.
Richards first introduction into the
commercial world started when he
joined Netsource, which was a
subsidiary company of Denel that
distributed networking equipment into
sub-Saharan Africa. While working
there he took responsibility for
warehouse management, and IT
maintenance as well as sales support.
In 2001 he resigned from his position
at Netsource, as he wanted to study
and joined up with Aroma Beads, a
wooden jewellery manufacturing
company that sold jewellery with
aromatherapy oils impregnated into
them. At that time he also signed up to
work on an ad hoc basis for Students
Unlimited, running marketing
assignments.
Richard soon found his skill in the
production and operations
management while working for Aroma
Beads. Seeing that this product was a
huge success with women, who
swarmed for them, initially for their
bright and unique look to them,
Richard jumped at the opportunity
when the owners were looking to sell
the company.
It did not take very long after that
before the corporate market started to
take an interest in this product and
business started to boom, he found
himself negotiating deals with local
and international representatives, who
were all interested with this idea that

they could capitalize on. He sold the

bracelets as corporate gifts and in
adventure and curio shops nationally
and internationally. Due to better profit
margins he started to source better
quality beads internationally, which he
found brought a new interest to his
products. Now his clientele were
getting what they wanted and not just
the standard bead. Women loved his
new beads and as a result were
coming back with their daughters and
friends to buy and admire.
With the guidance of his dad, who was
a natural at the game of sales, he dealt
a fair innings in the marketing world,
where after 2 cars, all university fees
fully paid up with extra to spare and
over 6 years of successful business he
moved onto the next adventure.
After he graduated with a Bachelor of
Arts in Communications from the
University of South Africa he got
involved in the publishing world where
he started working for a training
provider who needed someone to look
after the operations of his company. As
the operations manager, Richard
would be managing the publishing of
new material and research for
development projects and quality
assurance for all product lines.
Through those years he successfully
turned operations around, improving
the service delivery of the product and
achieved customer satisfaction and
repeat contracts. As Richard has a
curious mind and has a long life
learner approach to life, he learned a
lot during this time about the corporate
world of Education, Training and
Development and the clientele who the
company was giving service to, he
decided to do a Post Graduate
Certificate in Education to enhance his

The story thus far

knowledge into the training game.
While In the capacity of operations
manager, Richard refined his insight
into business and the management
and control of service products in the
corporate environment where he
gained new skills in people,
organisational, time and project
management, budget control,
marketing and IT, all the while learning
about the ETD business. He was
guided by top industry specialists who
gave insight into how the growth and
development industry works in
Southern Africa and met some top
industry players in the corporate
market.
After a short spell overseas where
Richard took the opportunity to travel
to England, finding new interests of
ancient architecture and history, he
came back to South Africa ready for
his next adventure into the education
game but this time learning how
schools worked.
He started work at John Mitchell
Primary on the 09/01/2009, reporting
to the principal at 7:30 sharp, who did
not waste much time before showing
him his beloved pictures of Bill Clinton
and himself shaking hands, when he
was visiting the school during the
Clinton Administration and went on to
tell him of how many important people
had been to this school in the past,
that being, the likes of Arch Bishop
Desmond Tutus daughter and one of
Nelson Mandela's grandchildren.
Richards first role there at the school
was to teach the grade 7's English and
Mathematics and administer all other
class room processes, form creating
lesson plans to assessing all learner
material as well as documenting and
filling. While he was in his first year he

trained athletics in the afternoons,

which out of the group he trained 3 of
them went onto Gauteng nationals. He
also joined the health and safety
committee of the school where he
worked closely with the senior school
HOD in implementing a new fire and
safety policy and fire evacuation
protocol throughout the school.
It was in this year that he decided that
he wanted to study further in business,
so he enrolled for a Bachelor of
Business Administration.
In the second year of teaching he saw
an opportunity to transfer roles and
move to the IT department.
Here Richard would perform three
different roles for the school: Where he
would provide correct curriculum
delivery to the learners of the school,
he developed a new curriculum for the
school. He also wrote 2 user guides
that he incorporated into the
curriculum,(which he wrote after hours
and sold copies to corporate as well as
to Non Profit Organisations), brought
in new ways of teaching IT and
managed the IT lab security and
computer maintenance; He would act
as a support structure to the SMT and
staff in their IT needs and training,
which included working closely with IT
and sales consultants, introducing new
programs packages into the school, as
well as purchasing all new IT and
Technology for the school in scope of
the IT budget and with the approval
from the Principal and the Finance
Manager. Richard was also
responsible for the data management
process for the school that took the
delivery of all data from marking to
reporting and retention identification,
using Excel formulas, which increased
the accuracy of the reports and data,
took a lot of extra administration off the
teachers hands as well as ensured

The story thus far

that the reports were ready for parent
delivery; He also built a new website
and administered it for the school.
In 2013 after receiving a degree in
Business Administration focusing on
business and strategic management,
Richard saw the opportunity to move
back into the corporate environment,
where he would re-join Inhle ETD as a
Business Manager and facilitator. At
this juncture he also went on with his
studies and registered for a BCom
Honours in Business Management. At
Inhle ETD he got involved in the full
Training &Development business life
cycle, where he managed a staff of 4,
administered a number of training
projects and the coordination of
training consultants and facilitated
workshops for the company.
Richards office assignments also
included the revising of all company
policies as well as modelling new
policies and implementing them into
the work environment. This also

involved modelling and mapping the

business model and realigning it with
that of the Seta standards. Here
Richard also mapped new strategies
from this process to increase
productivity and save money on
resources in the office and increase
service delivery in the process of
training and as a whole, increasing
customer satisfaction. Richard was
also involved in the learner ships
projects, where he acted as a
facilitator, mentor, coach and academic
consultant to the learners and the
client.
After working for Inhle ETD, where he
gained a wealth of experience, Richard
moved in to the consulting world of
Education, training and development,
where he started Bonsai Consult,
where he provides his services into the
corporate world focusing on growth
and development, business consulting,
facilitation, coaching and mentoring
and tutoring.