A radio booth. A crisis line. A sprint retrospective. An interview. Different rooms, the same skill. I trained as a psychologist and I use it every day to build teams that actually deliver.
People keep asking how psychology led to Agile. It's one job with four addresses.
Every role I've held has been the same exercise: get a person to tell you the truth, work out what they actually need, then do something useful with it. Pick a room.
LifeLine Western Cape · 2022 → now
Someone calls the crisis line.
There's no file, no history, and no second attempt at the first minute. You listen underneath the words, run a risk assessment while you're doing it, and stay calm enough that the person on the other end can be.
It is the hardest listening I have ever done, and it recalibrated everything after it.
HFM · 2020 → 2022
Live, on the clock, to a room you cannot see.
Two years of presenting taught me to make a stranger comfortable inside ninety seconds, to hold a thought to the second, and to keep a thread running while three other things go wrong off-mic.
Stand-ups have never intimidated me since.
Recruitment · 2023 → now
Two people describing the same job, differently.
A candidate tells you what they think you want to hear. A hiring manager tells you what they think they need. My work lives in the gap, and the gap is almost always about something nobody has said out loud yet.
Scrum · 2023 → now
A team tells you the truth once it's safe to.
Psychological safety isn't a poster in a Slack channel — it's a thing you build turn by turn, in team charters, in honest root-cause work, in the 1:1s nobody has time for until they do.
Everything I learned on a crisis line applies. The stakes are only a sprint.
Signal shape
What transfers
Risk assessment under pressure. Referral without ego. Keeping the ethical record straight.
What transfers
Timeboxing that is felt, not enforced. Facilitation as hospitality. Grace under a live mic.
What transfers
Stakeholder translation. Honest expectation-setting. Staying with people through a six-month visa process.
What transfers
Conflict surfaced early. Flow made visible. Retrospectives people leave lighter than they arrived.
03 — The years
Seven years, three lives, one calendar.
The paid work, the volunteer work and the broadcasting have always run at the same time. Filter the calendar and you'll see how much of it overlaps.
2026 — NOW
Senior IT Recruiter
Super Group — contracted through People2People / StartGo · RPO
Own the full end-to-end recruitment process, including compliance with company policy and South African employment law.
Strategic partner to hiring managers — talent-market expertise, sourcing strategy, and honest advice on what a role can realistically attract.
Produce recruitment metrics and insight reports that hiring teams actually use.
Run screening, assessments, interview panels, background and risk checks, then hand over cleanly to HR for onboarding.
Contribute to employer-brand development and represent the company in the external market.
2025 — 2026
IT Recruiter, Scrum Master & Market Analyst
Albert Bow, United Kingdom
Led four South African recruiters and facilitated a further eight in Ireland and thirteen in the UK.
Partnered directly with the CEO, turning strategic objectives into delivery goals with measurable outcomes.
Produced market and financial analysis across Web3, blockchain and quantitative finance portfolios — client intelligence that shaped commercial focus.
Established Agile practice as a cultural foundation across three countries: stand-ups, planning, refinement, retrospectives, stakeholder reviews.
Used multi-region A/B testing to validate assumptions and inform the UAE expansion roadmap.
2025 — 2026
News Presenter
PlayZN · after hours
Researching stories, writing clear scripts and delivering live news to a local audience — accurate, timely, and told like it matters to the people hearing it.
2025
Independent Consultant — Recruiter & Scrum Master
Lesedi PFS · Dutch market
Placed 78 roles into the Dutch market, from C-suite to Cloud, DevOps and software engineering (Java and C#).
Carried candidates through EU immigration and visa processes, holding engagement across timelines of up to six months.
Contracted separately by multiple clients to design and enable high-performing delivery teams.
Coached teams in Lean and Scrum to improve value flow and delivery predictability; designed Agile workshops and onboarding frameworks.
Ran root-cause analysis, built team charters and facilitated retrospectives to reduce conflict and grow psychological safety.
2023 — 2025
Technical Recruiter & Agile Facilitator
Standout Staffing (TSG)
R1.2 million billed in the first ten months across sixteen placements; R1.4 million in year two.
Onboarded at least three new clients every quarter, consistently.
Applied Lean and Agile improvements to internal recruitment workflows, raising visibility and cutting waste.
Produced market insight reports to anticipate hiring demand, and acted as the bridge between clients, candidates and delivery expectations.
2023 — NOW
Volunteer Coordinator
Fisantekraal Animal Welfare
Fundraising, donation management and community outreach to keep animal care and welfare services running. After hours, every year since 2023.
2022 — NOW
Volunteer Crisis Counsellor
LifeLine
Confidential first-line crisis counselling for people in emotional distress — risk assessment, referral to appropriate services, and ethical record-keeping. Four years and counting.
2022
Python Coach & Curriculum Creator
SA School of Coding
Designed and delivered Python programmes across skill levels, built the digital curriculum against real learning outcomes, and coached learners through onboarding and progress tracking. The year I stopped being intimidated by engineers.
2021
Volunteer Programme Coordinator
Monte Rosa Home for the Aged
Coordinated volunteer-led cognitive activities, physical exercise, social clubs and community engagement for elderly residents in a residential care setting.
2020 — 2022
Radio Personality & Presenter
HFM, formerly Helderberg FM
Presented Weekends with Bernie and Midday Brew — live shows, interviews and community content.
Ran outside broadcasts live on location at client sites.
Researched and developed storylines, held live broadcasts to strict time constraints, and kept listeners in the room through call-ins and interactive segments.
2019 — 2020
Customer Liaison & Export Consultant
IPIC Active & Play · B&L Exports
Where it started. First point of contact for members and visitors at IPIC; before that, managing international fruit exports at B&L — regulatory compliance, logistics, customs problems, and international clients who needed their delivery on time.
04 — On air
Two years of talking to people I could not see.
Radio is the best facilitation training I know of. It is unforgiving about time, allergic to waffle, and it teaches you that a warm voice does more work than a clever script. I still present the news after hours — partly because I love it, mostly because it keeps the instrument tuned.
Music production and voiceover work happen in the same room.
Weekends with Bernie
HFM · live, Saturdays and Sundays
2020–22
Midday Brew
HFM · weekday middays, interviews and call-ins
2020–22
The news, after hours
PlayZN · weekday mornings
Live
Outside broadcastsVoiceoverMusic production
05 — The line
Since January 2022 I have taken calls for LifeLine.
First-line crisis counselling. Confidential, after hours, unpaid. Risk assessments, referrals, careful records. I will not tell you a single story from it, and that is rather the point — but it is the most formative work I do, and it is why I take psychological safety on a delivery team as seriously as I take a burndown chart.
Trauma Counselling · Personal Growth · LifeLine Western Cape, 2021
06 — Training
The formal version of the instinct.
Two psychology degrees, two counselling certificates, a Scrum licence and two teaching qualifications. In that order — which explains a lot.
2025 — 2026 · Licensed
SAFe 6 Scrum Master
Scaled Agile, Inc.
2020
BA Honours, Psychology
University of South Africa
2019
BSocSci, Psychology
University of South Africa
2021
Trauma Counselling
LifeLine Western Cape
2021
Personal Growth
LifeLine Western Cape
Teaching
TESOL & TEYLT
English to speakers of other languages, and to young learners
07 — Evidence
Empathy is the method. These are the results.
Building & supporting Agile teams
3
countries running one Agile cadence — South Africa, Ireland, the UK
9
delivery teams stood up or coached into Lean and Scrum ways of working