Core Professional Team

Martin Kopsch

Martin Kopsch had his first exposure to risk management in the insurance industry. Here he assisted clients (mostly small business and factory owners) how best to reduce their Safety, Health and Environmental risk exposure through adopting excellent practices in this regard, thus reducing their risk exposure.

He used this experience when he joined De Beers Consolidated Mining and was directly involved with the strategic focus drive under the leadership of Cynthia Carol, (then CEO of Anglo American Group) on achieving Zero Harm in the areas of Risk Management. He was responsible for creating awareness, developing knowledge and best practices across all the De Beers mines within Southern Africa. The focus was on achieving and maintaining legal compliance and developing and improving better behaviour of all employees and contractors, ensuring all ‘diamond-people’ return safely and healthy to their loved ones at the end of every work-shift.

This brought him into close contact with the Mine Health and Safety Act, at which time he met Michael Kruger. This relationship formed the basis of the dream to improve decision-making capability, to ensure better and safer behaviour for all.

Martin holds a Mechanical Engineering degree, as well as an MBA and Management diploma. He has a diploma in Education and Training Practices, which he obtained to better understand the discipline of adult learning.

Martin has been running his own online learning company for over 6 years and most recently is involved with one of the largest oil companies in the world, where he actively engages upskilling and coaching employees and contractors to make better decisions, consciously and unconsciously, in order to reach their target of “100% HSE”.

Gerhard Barnard

Gerhard is a Chartered Accountant and experienced corporate leader with extensive exposure to the HSE (Health Safety Environment) across several sectors, including mining, manufacturing and the financial services sector. He is an expert in organizational risk and risk management in addition to his extensive exposure to training environments and ISO standard implementations. 

He believes in providing both teams and individuals with the right training and tools to help them succeed in the business and risk environment  - thereby ensuring a safer environment for all. Gerhard has spent years in both consulting environments as well as operational roles.  

Expert Advisor - Michael Kruger