Stef du Plessis

Stef du Plessis is a valued resource to CEOs who want to improve their overall organisational results by changing the way that their people do things. He is also a firm favourite with event planners at premier events on topics related to change, performance and results.

Ranked by the Dubai-based Institute for International Research as “one of the world’s leading practitioners” in his field, he grows people who get results and he helps organisations to create winning workplace cultures.

He has successfully delivered more than 3,500 assignments, ranging from one-hour presentations at premiere events, through to enterprise-wide culture-by-design interventions (powered by the one-of-a-kind UGRs concept) for some of the most successful brands on earth.

The UGRs concept, originally created by his Australian-based business partner Steve Simpson, and perfected by the two of them in collaboration with their many shared clients (since forming their partnership back in 2003), has now been used by organisations in more than 50 countries to ensure sustainable improvement across a wide range of performance indicators.

It is common knowledge that an improved workplace culture changes everything – to the extent that culture is now considered to be the single most critical factor that drives organisational success or failure. As a result, leaders everywhere have become increasingly focused on managing culture – but because the skills and expertise with which to do so are sorely lacking, very few actually get it right. Now, the UGRs concept changes this for good.

By providing a simple and practical end-to-end solution that includes an expansive range of online resources, leaders are equipped to design and embed a winning culture that will ensure the success of the enterprise into the future, whilst also making it a great place to work.

Beyond this, the tried-and-tested UGRs assessments and tools make it easy to measure progress, so that transformation can be sustained.

Stef has also been speaking internationally for the past two decades on topics that make change permanent, drive performance and boost results, like employee engagement through self-mastery and motivation; authentic leadership; trust-based teamwork; and the “nuts ‘n bolts” of how to manage workplace culture. As one of the only speakers in the world – and the only one outside of North America and Europe – to have earned every award and accreditation available in professional speaking, there is no question about his ability to capture and hold an audience. Given his authentic and authoritative – yet reassuringly casual – style, always with a touch of just the right humour, he has a proven capacity to influence individuals to do more, be more and have more – at home, work and play.

What really distinguishes him as a transformation catalyst though is a remarkable reservoir of personal experience, backed by a solid academic underscore – a combination that enables him to actually show people how to implement meaningful and lasting change, beyond which he also provides the tools with which to sustain personal transformation.Clients everywhere agree: working with Stef gives them a competitive advantage – to the obvious fiscal benefit of the organisation – through the mobilisation of a positively engaged workforce of empowered people who do what they say they are going to do, in an environment where everyone’s contribution counts and where work is considered to be worthwhile.

The compound effect of this is perhaps best described by former South African President, Thabo Mbeki, who – after attending one of his programmes – said that “Stef’s work has nation-building potential”.