The community is fortunate to have someone of her calibre advising them
Prof. Shirley is now a part of the CHRO SA advisory board, which will provide guidance to this new and growing community on how to best serve the needs of HR executives. An HR veteran herself, Shirley has a wealth of knowledge about the profession and is the CEO of her own company, Shirley Zinn Consulting, which provides consulting and advisory services relating to transformation, leadership, and education.
As a director of various boards, she has vast experience in advisory and boasts an impressive track record as an HR professional. Until last June last year, she was the Group Head of HR at Woolworths Holdings Limited. Prior to that, she was the Head of HR of Standard Bank South Africa and Deputy Global Head of HR for the Standard Bank Group. She was also the Group Executive for HR at Nedbank and General Manager for Human Resources at the South African Revenue Service .
She is also an Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria’s Department of Human Resource Management, as well as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Cape Town. She is a former President of the Institute for People Management South Africa and registered as a Master HR Professional with the South Africa Board for People Practice. It is this wealth of knowledge and experience that CHRO SA hopes to tap into in order to become a guiding light for HR executives who are navigating a fast-evolving business environment.
“Old tricks are quickly becoming obsolete. The CHRO role has been shifting for years, and 2018 may be the year we see this shift go full-throttle. We live in a fast-paced age of disruption and operate in an increasingly complex business landscape. CHROs are required to lead with an impact that matters,” says Shirley.
In addition to numerous other academic qualifications, Shirley Zinn holds two Masters Degrees and a PhD from Harvard University. She has written a book, Swimming Upstream: A story of grit and determination to succeed, which has received plaudits as one of the most impressive biographies in recent years.
