Steve Glendinning

Steve utilizes a unique range of techniques to assist leaders of business, family and social enterprises to interpret and respond correctly to complex people or organizational challenges. This may be to adapt to short-term impacts, or to realign client organizations with longer-term strategies.

While much of Steve’s consulting work is in personalized executive coaching, he also leads SG Consulting supported by a network of professional associates. He operates internationally, primarily from Cape Town (South Africa) and London (United Kingdom).

Steve provides legitimate guidance to clients seeking to better understand themselves and the organizations in which they live and work. His approach is informed by his qualifications in developmental, educational and organizational psychology, his business studies at Harvard and INSEAD, and his experiences as a fixed wing and helicopter pilot. He offers a proven track record of success in designing and applying methods of client support that drive organizational effectiveness, particularly where transition is a central requirement to unlock new potential and stimulate progress towards new goals.

Steve has built his unique expertise over the past 35 years of working and studying internationally in a diversity of environments, from stable and progressive, to innovative and artistic, to disrupted and complex. He has developed deep insight into humans both as organizational resources and as unique individuals, his perspectives being informed by direct experience in senior leadership roles in manufacturing, retail and professional services and his personal entrepreneurial interests in music and aviation.

Steve's corporate experience ranges from hands-on detail in a number of business functions to the highest levels of Boardroom governance and participation. He has worked with CEO's of large multi-national companies, chaired national industry forums, served as a Trustee in various entities, and sat on advisory boards in the USA, Switzerland, Russia, and Southern Africa. Steve gained extensive management experience early in his career before leading the Human Capital functions of two major South African retailers, Massmart Holdings and Mr Price Group, and has built consulting skills through positions in Deloitte and independently.

2024

Presently Steve holds Advisory Board, Non-Executive Director, and Non-Executive Chairman positions, and actively manages his business and entrepreneurial interests. During 2024, Steve is increasingly stepping back from front-line consulting work to focus more on Board roles and related advisory contributions. He remains available for general advisory support.

SG Consulting

Steve operates in association with carefully selected individuals or professional service organizations, chosen for specific assignments against a clear understanding of client requirements. They are always credible and highly qualified in their fields of expertise, offering unique contributions to client success.

Steve’s unique professional contribution includes organizational strategy; the alignment of strategy-organization-people; the development of executive capacity; and the development of key individuals in positions of complex decision-making.

Typical interventions are:

Organisational improvement

The chosen business or operational model is better enabled through careful organization design, while offering fresh perspectives to leaders of businesses, family enterprises or society organizations on how best to configure the resources available to them. A client engagement generally starts with an interrogation of the current operating environment, core business drivers and future strategic intentions, followed by reviewing and detailing opportunities for improvement, then implementation.

Succession planning

SG Consulting is intimately involved with a number of family businesses, specializing in succession planning and generational transitions. This includes readiness assessments of the incoming generation and their subsequent preparation and development, as well as personal assistance to the outgoing generation.

Leadership, strategy and execution

Close advice is provided to clients to build continuous clarity of direction, strength of leadership, well organized management and execution capabilities, and superior performance of human capital assets. Very high emphasis is placed on trust and partnership in working towards agreed outcomes. As such, relationships with our long-term clients are characterized by a continuous process of discovery and a constantly evolving direction.

Individual coaching

Steve offers intensely personal assistance to individuals in support of their career development, or where a person may simply require time out to reflect on life and their place in it. This includes partnering closely with leaders in their personal spaces where values, judgement, decisions and behavior are honed before emerging as unique attributes that successfully progress their world.