Niven Postma is a strategy, leadership, and culture consultant who partners with clients in diverse industries around the world to (re)ignite the discretionary energy of people and teams, build an enabling culture, and develop meaningful strategies.
Niven has held executive positions since she was 29, in a career that has spanned multiple sectors and roles. Before starting up her own consultancy and embarking on her PhD in Organisational Behaviour, her positions included: CEO of the Businesswomen’s Association, Head of the South African Reserve Bank Academy and Head of Leadership and Culture for the Standard Bank Group (the largest bank by assets in Africa).
Having started her career as a strategy consultant, Niven now coaches global executive teams in industries as diverse as financial and professional services, retail, media, transport and manufacturing, to build what she calls “Whole System Leadership” and so doing, fundamentally transform how they are able to work together and what they are able to achieve. An expert in organisational politics, Niven is the author of the best-selling book ‘If you don’t do politics, politics will do you’ - A guide to navigating office politics ethically and successfully (published in 2020). Her articles and ideas can be found in various well-respected media and podcasts.
Niven is a Harvard Business Review and Inc. contributor, a part time tutor at Cambridge University’s Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) and has been a guest lecturer at Stanford University. She is an expert facilitator on women’s leadership development programmes around the world and serves as the Chairman of the Board of Cotlands, an NGO that for 87 years has done cutting edge work in the Early Childhood Development sector in South Africa and beyond. Her keynotes on organisational politics, leadership, culture and women’s leadership have been delivered to audiences of up to 60,000 people.
Niven holds an Executive MBA in Systems thinking, Human capital development, knowledge management, leadership, and change. She also holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Future Studies and a BA in English Political Science. In 2007, Niven was awarded the Archbishop Tutu Leadership Fellowship.
Anything complex will always have more than a single story, but all too often we fall into the trap of the one dimensional, because it doesn’t even occur to us to look for more. Exactly the same is true when it comes to office politics. There is so much more to office politics than the single negative and destructive story that we hear and tell ourselves. This practical and eye-opening keynote is based on my recent book and draws on my 20 year experience as an executive, together with insights from some of the leading business thinkers of our time, It will open your eyes to the real definition of office politics, convince you that it’s possible to play politics without sacrificing your principles and teach you how to use politics to advance your career and build your organisation.
Gallup’s Global Employee Engagement Survey consistently reveals rising employee disengagement across various companies, industries, and countries. Despite this, over 80% of adults would still choose to work even if financially unnecessary. This raises critical questions about our awareness in career and life choices. Leaders must ask themselves if they are fostering environments that promote growth and contribution or if employees are merely enduring their jobs. A paradigm shift is needed where leaders inspire curiosity, resilience, and industry disruption. Attendees will learn how to cultivate a culture that encourages continuous skill acquisition and unlearning outdated routines.
Niven Postmas highlights that sexism and racism are systemic issues, not just individual actions. Focusing solely on challenges faced by women executives overlooks broader societal issues affecting all girls and women. Caroline Criado Perez's acclaimed book "Invisible Women" exposes a gender data gap perpetuated by a world designed primarily for men. This data gap impacts women's bodies, unpaid care work, and violence against them, even in peaceful societies. Executives, while better resourced, are still part of this system. To thrive, organizations must grasp these complexities without resorting to blame. Understanding these risks is vital for preventing harm and fostering progress, transcending simplistic notions of fixing women or blaming men.
With the ever-increasing rate of change that we are all dealing with, individuals, organisations and leaders all need to become better equipped to deal with what is our “now normal”; a disruption that will continue for years to come and unfold in many ways that for now we can only guess at. In this disruption, we will undoubtedly be confronted with many more challenges but so too will we have many more opportunities – opportunities for growth, learning, collaborating and doing what really matters.
