Today, we are remembering one of our dear South African Coaches, John Barnes.
John passed away on October 23rd, after a brave battle against cancer. John worked closely with Emzingo since 2012, coaching and mentoring many of our fellows, and always made himself available to grab coffee and discuss life, the state of affairs and the state of the company with South African country staff. He was thoroughly loved by his coachees, and highly regarded for his advice and perspective.
With an MBA from Wits Business School, John’s extensive work experience has been in corporate employment, such as with Standard Bank, with 26 years’ experience in a range of positions in Human Resources, Business Development and Business Unity Management. For the past years, he was a coach in leadership and action learning and a part-time lecturer at the Wits Business School’s Leadership Development.
John was also an avid reader and loved gardening. It is no surprise that one of his passions was to help people and he had an amazing ability to match people with organizations, identifying the needs and strengths of each. His mentees can attest that stimulating and challenging discussions were what he enjoyed enormously.
He was a very sociable person and livened up most social events with amusing and entertaining stories and anecdotes.
He will be greatly missed both personally and professionally, and he will certainly be remembered.