Just a little about me...
Aldrin Beyer, more commonly known as Buzz, is a co-founding director
of Professional Conversations (a platform-as-a-service for monetising
and democratising expertise and knowledge services), adjunct faculty
at GIBS, a strategic thinking and problem solving facilitator, and a life &
business coach.
Buzz’s services are grounded in coaching and facilitation. His fields of
interest lie in Strategy Execution, Innovation, Operations, Leadership,
Management, High Performing Teams, and Personal Mastery. He offers
customised life-, leadership-, performance-, or business coaching to
individuals, teams and organisations. Buzz makes use of the action
learning and coaching approaches to facilitate personal, team and business-operations improvement, with the benefit of creating independent sustainable capacity in the individuals and teams he works with. His focus is on working with clients to build their abilities and skills for sustainable improvement.
Through his work as a lecturer/facilitator, Buzz has honed his skills in the science and art of effective presenting, and coaches people and teams to deliver impactful and effective presentations.
Buzz’s coaching process enables clients to be more conscious and aware of possibility. This creates a great context from which to create, deliver and achieve. He partners with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and/or professional potential. His blended coaching process empowers clients from the creative process and through the implementation process of achieving their business or personal goals.
Buzz started his career and studies in the mining industry with a bursary from JCI to study Chemical Engineering. During his studies, Buzz then had the privilege of doing vacation work at Randfontein Estates, Westonaria, Waterval Smelter and Rustenburg Refiners. After three years of studies, Buzz found a new passion in Computer Science and Chemistry, which led him to complete his BSc Honours degree in the field of ‘computational chemistry’ using neural networks to predict the outcome of chemical reactions. After graduating from the University of Cape Town in 1993 with a BSc (Hons) in Chemistry, Buzz worked for Grace Dearborn, a leading water management company in South Africa, both in the laboratory and as a technical sales consultant. In 1995, Buzz joined a subsidiary of Iscor Ltd, Suprachem (Pty) Ltd, a company focused on adding value to chemical and related waste and by-products from the steel industry. Buzz started in sales, moved on to market development and in 1998 became Suprachem’s Business Development Manager and, shortly thereafter, also the Business Manager for Nu-Rock South Africa, a newly created joint venture company between Suprachem and Nu-Rock in Australia which was started from one of Buzz’s business development projects to agglomerate steel mill and other industrial waste and by-products into useable building materials (aggregates, bricks, blocks, pavers, etc). Buzz managed the project from laboratory scale to commercialisation.
In 2002, Buzz completed his MBA at Wits with the aim of starting his own business. Subsequently, Buzz consulted to Mittal Steel (now ArcelorMittal) on value addition to their waste and by-products, started a building renovations business (Square Tortoise CC) and, purchased, improved and re-launched a time capsule concept for parents to collect and store memories and mementoes from their baby’s first year, called Memory PodTM.
In 2006, Buzz took up an opportunity as Assistant to the Managing Director at Holcim (South Africa), now called AfriSam (South Africa), where he was tasked with the administration of the EXCO, periodic reporting, co-ordination of the company’s business risk management and the execution and co-ordination of various special projects.
Throughout his working career Buzz has travelled extensively to foster international sales relationships and partnerships, attend conferences, source and investigate new technology for the value addition to industrial by-products, and to critically assess and evaluate options for value addition to steel mill by-products.
Buzz joined GIBS in September 2007 as a full-time lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Operations Management. In February 2010, he moved to the Adjunct Faculty position with GIBS, allowing him to continue lecturing, as well as, pursue his private business ventures and grow his business improvement & performance coaching consultancy. Buzz lectures in the areas of Strategy Execution, Operations Management, Innovation, Corporate Entrepreneurship, Principles of Management and Leadership, Personal Mastery, Coaching, and related subject areas. In support of pursuing excellence in his coaching practice, he successfully completed a Certificate in Leadership Coaching at Wits Business School in mid-2010, as well as, the Enneagram Practitioner and Team Dynamics Training with Integrative Enneagram Solutions in 2014/5. In September 2017, Buzz completed his qualification as a Certified Consciousness Coach (which is an International Coach Federation (ICF) Accredited Coach Training Programme (ACTP)). Buzz has been accredited as a member of the WITS Business School College of Coaches since 2013. Buzz has also been an Action Learning Coach (Problem-solving and Opportunity-developing Facilitator) and Course/Programme Integrator at GIBS (Gordon Institute of Business Science) since 2008.
In addition to being a creative thinker and constantly challenging the status quo, Buzz has a passion for enabling people, teams and organisations to flourish. Buzz’s diverse background and interests give him the ability to appreciate the complexities and intricacies of business, management and leadership across a broad range of industries, locally and internationally. As a result, Buzz creates value for teams and organisations through facilitating strategic thinking and problem solving.
In December 2019, Buzz founded Professional Conversations (PTY) Ltd, which aims to facilitate the rapid expanse of human potential, through providing a full-service, safe, secure and user-friendly online marketplace and virtual venue for provision of, access to, and engagement with, the world’s top-rated, professional, knowledge and intelligent assistance services.
Buzz has been married to Frances since 1994, and they have four children that are flourishing in their various areas of passion.
Qualifications
- 1992 - BSc Chemistry (UCT);
- 1993 - BSc (Hons) degree in Chemistry (UCT);
- 2002 - MBA (Wits Business School);
- 2010 - Certificate in Leadership Coaching (Wits Business School);
- 2014 - Accredited Integrative Enneagram Practitioner (Integrative Enneagram);
- 2015 - Advanced Enneagram Team Dynamics (Integrative Enneagram);
- 2017 - Certified Consciousness Coach - ICF Accredited Coach Training Programme (Creative Consciousness International);
- 2018 - Accredited Belbin Team Roles Practitioner.
