Knowledge Leadership Associates is a network organization consisting of associates with distinctive expertise in various disciplines of the broad field of KIM. They continually expand their 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.
The Associates are:
Dr. Ben Fouché
Dr. Gretchen Smith
Hilda Kruger
Prof. Peter G. Underwood
Lizl Lubbe
Dr. Ben Fouché
Ben Fouche is the principal of Knowledge Leadership Associates, a network of experts focusing on training, consulting and research services in information and knowledge management.
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 Lecturer at the Centre for Information Literacy, University of Cape Town, and coordinates the Department’s Masters and Honours programmes in Knowledge and Information Management. She has a B.Sc. (Mathematics and Chemistry) degree from Stellenbosch University followed by postgraduate qualifications including a M.A. (Information Science) from UCT.
She developed and teaches the Knowledge and Information Management (KIM) courses at the University of Cape Town. She also teaches Information Retrieval and Research Methodology.
Gretchen keeps track of the latest developments in KIM practices by interacting with experts in the field worldwide. Her fields of interests are: The impact of organisational culture on information communication; human and cultural aspects of KIM, and content management in electronic environments.
She has frequently consulted, and this includes involvement in information and knowledge audits for Mobil, AECI, PGWC, NAMPAK, SANS, etc. She has also been involved in the design and development of a number of taxonomies and thesauri in subject disciplines ranging from AIDS (for the MRC) to the film industry.
Hilda Kruger
Hilda Kruger holds the degrees BA (Hons) Information Science (cum laude) and BBibl from the University of Stellenbosch, and a Certificate in Law from the University of South Africa.
In 2005 she co-ordinated the undergraduate programme in Socio Informatics at the Department of Information Science, University of Stellenbosch, and teaches modules in corporate information management, knowledge management, competitive intelligence, advanced Internet search techniques, and organisation theory. She is also currently completing her Master’s degree in Socio-informatics.
While previously working as an infomediary at the Information Centre of the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business, she trained Associate in Management, MBA, and Executive MBA students in the use of advanced database and Internet search techniques.
Her current research interests include the role of infomediaries in the network society, barriers to organisational information and knowledge flows, and information organisation and retrieval in the context of the emerging Semantic Web. She is a member of the Knowledge Management Practitioners Group of the Western Cape.
Peter G. Underwood
Peter G. Underwood is Professor of Librarianship at the University of Cape Town, having occupied this position since 1992. Prior to this he spent twenty years as Lecturer in the Department of Information Studies, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, United Kingdom.
He 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. He has also had published many journal articles and other material.
His teaching and research focuses on information literacy, information systems management and organizational behaviour in the context of libraries and information services. He is the Editor of the South African journal of libraries and information science and is an External reviewer for Education for information and Journal of libraries and information science.
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). He is also a member of the Library and Information Association of South Africa and the Association of Southern Africa Indexers and Bibliographers.
His work as former Director of 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 in the Western Cape to audiences as diverse as business students, students of design and photography, medical clinicians and engineers.
Lizl Lubbe
Lizl holds a BA (Hons) Socio-Informatics degree from the University of Stellenbosch. She is an Associate of Knowledge Leadership Associates (Knowlead) where she has diverse responsibilities for course administration as well as course development and training. In addition she is the Web and Blog master of Knowlead.
Lizl has considerable training experience, having taught information orientation courses at the University of Stellenbosch. She is also a member of the team responsible for the presentation of the well known Internet Information Retrieval and Personal Information Tools and Techniques course under the leadership of Hilda Kruger or Peter Underwood.
Previous experience includes participation in both the research and implementation phases of various digital information management projects at NAXiAN Digital Management Solutions. One of her core research topics was on popular web technologies and its possible application at work.
