The harbour
that fuels
your journey.

Co-creating resilient leaders, teams, and organisations, characterised by internal stability and external adaptability.

find out more

Our Approach

“Ubuntu – I am because you are”

Neuroscience has clearly demonstrated the truth of Ubuntu, an African philosophy, that teaches us that we are interdependent. Our brains grow and change in the soil of our relationships. Therefore, our successes and failures depend on the quality of our relational environment.

At BrainFit Partners we deeply understand that organisations are complex, self-organising human systems. While our environment influences how we self-organise, we simultaneously create the environment as we engage with it, for better or worse. While the brain has very specific rules for transformation, these rules are embedded in our real-life experiences. One size does not fit all. We therefore integrate your unique experiences with the best of neuroscience, industrial psychology practice and open systems theory.

We follow a blended approach, integrating digital delivery and face to face interventions. We pride ourselves in tailoring your journey to your needs.

Our Journey

Our Ride the Waves Journey comes in three customisable solutions:

Leadership
Journey

Team
Journey

Personal
Resilience

Features

In our Ride the Waves Coaching Journey you will learn:

Stability

How to create internal stability within yourself and your team during uncertainty and adversity.

Navigation

How to navigate the complex boundaries of relationships and group dynamics, to steer your team towards goal achievement.

Co-ordination

How to co-ordinate the Dance of the Three Brains in yourself and your team.

Sustainability

How to meet the four basic psychological needs for safety and sustainability.

Purpose Driven

How to use our Remember the Future Protocol™ to design purpose driven strategies.

Optimisation

How to optimise and check the quality of your own and your team’s
decision-making.

Our Team

We have spent 8 years integrating various disciplines, theories and practices from neurosciences, psychology, and systems theory to arrive at our framework of change. Apart from a significant academic background, our team has decades of consulting experience across industries and levels of organisations.

As our name suggests, we have a partnership mindset in everything we do, from needs analysis, to design, delivery, and evaluation. We also believe in empowering our clients throughout each intervention journey, so that they can continue to increase their team’s capacity for internal stability and external adaptability, long after we have left.

Our professional consulting, coaching and technology partners are hand-picked. They have journeyed with us for a long time and demonstrated their expertise and commitment to the same values we hold dear. BrainFit organisations build flourishing societies. This is our purpose; this is what matters.

Dirk Geldenhuys

DAdmin (IOP)

Co-Founder

“If you want to know if a consultant knows what they are doing, ask them what their theory of change is. How a consultant thinks about change is everything.”

I have 25 years of experience as an academic in organisational psychology, of which I focussed on applying neuroscientific research findings to the field since 2014. This sound theoretical background, combined with extensive hands-on experience as an industrial psychologist, prepared me to take the lead in establishing applied neuroscience in the field of organisational psychology in South Africa and to serve on the board of the International Association of Applied Neuroscience (IAAN).

I was awarded honorary life member for distinguished and meritorious service by the South African Society for Industrial and Organisational Psychology. My training and experience in systems-psychodynamics

(Tavistock Institute – UK; Bayswater Institute – UK & AK Rice Leadership Institute – USA), appreciative inquiry (NTL – USA; David Cooperrider – USA), socio constructionism (TAOS Institute – USA) and neuro-coaching (Neuropsychotherapy Institute – Australia) lead to the development, facilitation, and research on integrated interventions to facilitate transformational change. However, my life experience as a member of a family and a community taught me invaluable lessons, especially about the importance of wellbeing and resilience, even outside organisational life. This focus became much more important to me than authoring scholarly textbooks, supervising students, publishing scientific articles, and delivering papers at conferences.

“The best-kept secret is that wellbeing is the foundation of effective leadership and teams.”

Jenny Venter

HPCSA; SIOPSA; SABPP; IAAN

Co-Founder

“If you’re a Heinz-57 you should carefully consider your contribution.” I received this advice from Dr Lynn Pamensky, a dear friend and mentor. I am a versatile Industrial Psychologist. Over the last 19 years my insatiable curiosity led me to a diversity of professional experiences in consulting and academia. I specialise in psychological adjustment at work and leadership development.

I’ve served on multiple professional bodies, to ignite new thinking and tools for practice. Currently, I serve on the board of the International Association for Applied Neurosciences, assisting in the birth of the Journal of Applied Neurosciences. Every professional has defining moments that shape them. The first such moment was a social entrepreneurship called Partners for Possibility. In an extremely complex, compromised environment,

I witnessed large scale social change, and the breakdown of socio-economic and racial barriers. Facilitating this programme fundamentally changed how I understood organisational change and culture in adverse circumstances.

The second defining moment came in 2014, when I was introduced to applied neurosciences. My passion for translating neuroscience into practice led me to undertake a PhD focused on organisational neuroscience and wellbeing. The best kept secret is that wellbeing is the foundation of effective leadership and teams. “If you’re a Heinz-57 you should carefully consider your contribution.” – My contribution to society is to co-create organisations that can stay anchored in their purpose, while navigating the challenges of our time.