The Knowlead Team
Knowledge Leadership Associates is a network organization consisting of associates with distinctive expertise in various disciplines of the broad field of KIM. We continually expand our expertise through academic research, professional participation and client engagement. The benefits derived from this approach can only be realised if network flexibility is offset by strong project management and a centralised support system. This is provided by our central management office with responsibility for the coordination of activities across the training and consultation value chain.
Dr. Ben Fouché
Ben Fouche is the principal of Knowledge Leadership Associates. He holds a Doctorate in the field of Information Science from the Rand Afrikaans University and undertook advanced management studies at the UNISA School for Business Leadership (SBL) and the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Switzerland.
Ben has wide management, consulting, training and research experience. Previous management positions include those of director of information management in the public service, and Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the CSIR and executive director of its Informationtek division, where he led the development of corporate information strategy as well as the commercialisation of information products and services.
As a consultant on information strategy, policy and practice he undertook assignments for local private and public sector organisations, as well as governmental and intergovernmental organisations in Africa, e.g. the government of Namibia, the UN Economic Commission for Africa, and the Commonwealth Agricultural Bureau.
His last academic position from 1999 to 2003 was that of professor of information science and director of the master’s degree Programme in Information and Knowledge Management at the University of Stellenbosch, where he also lead a longitudinal research project on knowledge management practices in the South African business sector.
- Dr. Gretchen Smith
Gretchen Smith is a senior associate of Knowledge Leadership Associates. She graduated with a degree in mathematics and chemistry from the University of Stellenbosch and then obtained postgraduate qualifications in Information Science and Knowledge Management at the University of Cape Town. The research for her PhD studies related to conducting a social network analysis investigation amongst scientists in South Africa.
Gretchen has practiced as an Information and Knowledge Management professional for many years and has acted as an information and knowledge management consultant to Government Agencies, Industry and the Business sector in various countries in Sub Saharan Africa (e.g. the Provincial Government of the Western Cape, Medical Research Council, NLAS of Namibia, AECI, De Beers, & Afribank PLC in Nigeria). She has amongst others conducted knowledge and information audits, needs assessment studies, undertaken knowledge management strategy and implementation projects, social network analyses, and taxonomy design projects.
She also presents courses in Knowledge Management, Information Retrieval and Research Methodology at the University of Cape Town and the University of Stellenbosch’s Business School. She has conducted and supervised research covering various aspects of Knowledge and Information Management in a number of countries in Sub Saharan Africa, including South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Kenya, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Professor Peter G. Underwood
Peter G. Underwood is a senior associate of Knowledge Leadership Associates. He is Emeritus Professor of Librarianship of the University of Cape Town, having occupied the Chair from 1992-2010. Prior to this he spent twenty years as Lecturer in the Department of Information Studies, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, United Kingdom. He is a graduate of the Cranfield School of Management, having completed an MBA there in 1980, and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP).
Peter is the author of Managing change in libraries and information services: a systems approach and Soft systems analysis and the management of libraries, information services and resource centres, and co-author of Basics of data management for information services. In 2010, with Dr Colin Darch, he published Freedom of information in the developing world: demand, compliance and democratic behaviour (Woodhead/Chandos, 2010).
His teaching and research focuses on information literacy, information systems management and organizational behaviour in the context of libraries and information services. His work at the University of Cape Town’s Centre for Information Literacy has given him experience of planning and delivering workshops on information literacy and web searching. He has, for many years, provided discipline-specific web searching workshops to audiences as diverse as business students, students of design and photography, medical clinicians and engineers. More recently, he has been working with librarians and research officers of the Parliaments of South Africa, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.
The above core team is assisted by a number of experts from the KM, LIS, Public and Business sectors. Our affiliate associates include Dr Sipho Lombo, David Muirhead, Chris Armstrong and Ray Lonsdale.