Our Team

“Simply the best” – Tina Turner

Trish Pike is our very own Educational RockStar with decades of experience in the game. Learners are literally busting down the door to learn from her due to her incredible teaching ability, experience, passion and care for her students. She blazed the trail for our best-in-class AP Maths and NBT preparation courses and, over and above this, is hard at work mentoring generation NEXT; Advantage Learn’s next-generation teaching force. She is also the developer and lead teacher of our Maths Online offering – imagine this, over 180 hours of Trish teaching the entire maths syllabus via studio-recorded videos!

“Treat yo self!” Tom Haverford

Meet our very own Neil Armstrong. Actually, he’s more like our Bill Nye.

They say that one of the hardest steps for any startup is finding your first customer. Crispian bravely took these first steps. As part of the founding family made up of Trish, Crispian and James, Crispian was tasked with establishing our first AP Maths centres which gave us our reason to exist. And aren’t we grateful.

‘Analyze, strategize, succeed’ (A.S.S for short) – Jack Donaghy, 30 Rock

If there is a business term or idiom going, James has it covered. He favours idioms that are ship-related – we think he was a pirate in a past life. A creative trapped in an analyst’s body, James is the visionary of the team. On too many occasions to count, James has pitched a harebrained idea to the team, we’ve rolled our eyes, begrudgingly tried it out (because he is SUPER hard to ignore) … and slowly watched it become the best idea ever.

“You think you know who you are, what’s to come. You haven’t even begun.”

– Buffy the vampire slayer

This dynamo in the classroom is one of the leading ladies in Advantage Learn’s generation NEXT; the teaching force spearheaded by our Educational RockStar, Trish Pike. Strongly averse to the limelight, once Roxy finds herself in a classroom of young minds that need to learn, her light shines BRIGHTLY – illuminating tricky concepts with her trademark and disarming concept introduction of ”DON’T PANIC” – her students will know what that means. A lover of fast cars artistically painted nails and shoes, Roxy flies the Advantage Learn flag high in the city of gold, Johannesburg.

“I swear I had something for this” – Archer

Chris Muller is a self-starter who is passionate about tech, travel, learning and going off the beaten track. Chris is our dev whiz who turns our ideas into (web) reality.  Work Hard, Party Hard could be his middle name but that’s only for us to know.

“Always treat others as you would like to be treated.”

Debra has had experience being a Business owner and a Sales Representative but has joined Advantage Learn as our Delivery and Distribution Administrator. Her kind nature makes it a joy to work with Debra as she is a team player. Her patience and attention to detail ensure that she is able to help our parents and learners with any queries they may have in an efficient and kind manner.

“Being powerful is like being a lady, if you have to tell people you are, you aren’t” – Margaret Thatcher

With a degree majoring in Industrial and General Psychology, Nabeela has a corporate background of working in HR, mainly in recruitment and she then moved into Strategic assistant roles where she discovered her passion for coordination. Mum to one daughter who is all of her other life, when she is not working. Nabeela has performed many roles at Advantage Learn and is currently a Senior Coordinator with her major focus on the NBT preparation workshops.

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” – Dr Seus, The Lorax

Casey, mom of one beautiful little girl, has a background in hospitality and joined our Finance team in 2019 she’s an admin boffin like nobody else! In the middle of her finance journey, Casey was able to lend a helping hand with Marketing assisting in social media content development and some other important items before stepping back into Finance full time – women of many talents. Casey has helped us to put together some great structures within the operations side of our finance and accounts division since she joined and we are lucky to have her on board!

“Whatever you do, do it with all your heart.”

With her experience in PR and honours in Brand and Corporate Communications, Mekayla has been a God sent gift to Advantage Learn. Her willingness to help and love for Marketing has led to her being our Marketing, Brand and Communications Manager. With her creative flair and attention to detail, she has contributed to building our brand. In her role, she deals with our digital advertising, campaign planning PR and so much more. A true jack of all trades.

“No one is you and that is your superpower.” – Unknown author

Tracey has a background within the NGO sector as well as in education as a Science educator and Science HOD in the UK. She is an absolute queen when it comes to multitasking and managing people and tasks. She has a no-nonsense approach to managing while also balancing her heart and empathy for those around her – truly unique. With this in mind, outside of her role as Operations Manager of Advantage Learn, she also leads the Advantage Learn Foundation where she works hard to ensure that we are making a difference and extending our programmes to under-resourced learners in South Africa. We would not be able to run things so smoothly without her!

“I find that a duck’s opinion of me is very much influenced by whether or not I have bread.” – Mitch Hedberg

Even though Paul only joined us full time in 2020, his journey with Advantage Learn really started long before that! First helping out with some odd items here and there including doing some brilliant graphic design for Advantage Learn. From our logo to our website design, Paul has been involved every step of the way. Looking to grow and explore other fields, Paul left to study web development and joined full time in 2020 as a software developer. The rest is history…

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act, but a habit” – Aristotle

Siposayo or SK as we call her is our Senior Coordinator for annual programmes her experience is varied from project management to Marketing to Political Science. But here in the Advantage Learn space, she’s the one ensuring that these programmes are planned, organised, delivered and executed to a truly a-plus standard! SK is a burst of sunshine and we are so blessed to have her on our team.

“Never half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing” – Ron Swanson

Lucy has a history in Brand Management and Strategy but joined the Advantage Learn team as our Key Partnerships Manager in 2021! When she’s not drinking tea (excessively), she’s balancing mom-life and leading many of the key deliverables within our newest business unit, Salt. Within Salt we help SMEs with our LMS platform, consulting and so much more. In the Advantage Learn space, Lucy has been using her talents to ensure that our partners in this space are happy and satisfied by managing these relationships and ensuring that projects related to these partners are all being executed smoothly.

“Good things are coming”- Unknown

Jade has a background in CSI and Non-Profit work and brought her skills to Advantage Learn in 2021. Jade’s ability to connect and network is what we love most about her. Through her people skills and willingness to spot a problem and lend a solution, we have been able to help more schools and learners in their education journey.

“Knowledge without application remains theory. Knowledge with application becomes wisdom.” – Unknown author

Carl has a history of using digital tools to enable learning in educational environments. Off the clock, he enjoys spending time with his family outdoors. Within our team, Carl’s expertise enables him to help ensure that all our digital tools enable our learners to progress through their academic endeavours. Hats off to Carl!

“Show me the incentives & I’ll show you the outcome” – Charlie Munger

Forming part of A+’s internationally-based team, Nick embodies the “Jack of all trades” saying, with the slight difference of being “a master of some”. Nick is quick to raise his hand to help out in his team, and eagerly takes on new projects that help ensure we continue to deliver A+ learning solutions.

“If I were a flower…I would be a sunflower.” – Pam Strewart

The ingredients in Ariane’s skillset have been freshly cultivated from her background in Administration, Youth development, a sprinkling of events planning and a dash of hospitality. As a member of the Advantage Learn team she plays a part in maintaining the smooth operation of our programmes, mainly in the Further studies space. She is always keen to lend a helping hand and to spread a little Allegro wherever she can!

“If you are capable of dreaming it, you are capable of achieving it.”

Meet the whirlwind of tenacity and creativity – Josefina Aguirre, affectionately known as Jofi! From the vibrant land of tango and empanadas, Argentina, Jofi adds her own sizzle to our Marketing team as the Digital Marketing Coordinator. Renowned for her unwavering determination and rapid grasp of concepts, she’s the dependable force we count on to effortlessly tackle tasks and check off lists!

“It always seems impossible, until it’s done” – Nelson Mandela

Dene’s passionate journey in the professional education space includes numerous storied roles, from administration to financial oversight to being Phase Head for Foundation Phase. Her passion for shaping young minds and her commitment to providing a solid foundation for learners’ futures consistently shines through in Dene’s work. While she is known for being a creative and proactive go-getter, most recently in the Sales team, Dene is well loved amongst her colleagues for being a cultural heartbeat of the organisation and bringing her caring and maternal instincts to every interaction.