Featured Member
Christopher Crookes
Title : Area Manager Business Development
Marketing Area : National
Type Of Business : Business Development & Strategic Planning
Industry : Transportation Services
Expertise : Oversee dealerships, profits, business management, development for dealerships, human resources, maintain systems, employer branding, competence development
Years Of Experience In Industry : 9 years with Scania South Africa
Products And/Or Services :
Manufacturer for heavy duty trucks, industrial and marine engines, buses, OEM and manufacturer and distributor for heavy commercial vehicles for road transport of freight and passengers, and industrial and marine engines. Scania provides a range of services that include vehicle financing, repair and maintenance, fleet management, specialised applications and professional driver training.
Affiliations Awards :
Scania Revolutions Ithemba, Institute of Technology Magazines,
Attributes Success To :
One of Christopher's greatest achievements was in running his own consulting company (specialised training services) for six years. Amongst his achievements he started a Scania South Africa training section from scratch and built it up to a large training establishment always checking back for satisfaction and utilizing an innate quality of good leadership. Christopher grew the department with 13 personnel and caters for driver, technical and commercial training and led 4 managers equipped with WITS Business School qualifications. Due to Christopher's focus, methodical approaches and willingness to extend his knowledge the company was the first department in Scania SA to have a comprehensive in-house website and establish a training centre in Dar es Salaam for Scania East Africa.
He attributes his achievements to his focus, willingness to learn and consulting colleagues for advice, help and direction as well as to having self-control and being dependable, possessing the ability to persuade others through logic, facts and figures and being a strong strategic planner and paying attention to detail. Additionally, Christopher's strong problem solving and communication skills in his area of expertise as well as the emphasis he places on continually developing his skills has helped him achieve such success with Scania SA.
In 1998 Christopher set a goal in 1988 to travel the whole of South Africa by road, which he completed in 1996. Namibia and half of Botswana were completed in 2004. Chris's proudest moments include being able to travel abroad to St Pietersburg Russia, Tunis Tunisia, Istanbul Turkey, Stockholm and Gothenburg Sweden, Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, Shanghai China and London UK.
Future Career And Business Goals :
At the start of his career Christopher worked for a MAN Assembly plant in SA on the production line and became involved with training assembly personnel. He was retrenched from a large packaging organisation in 1994 and started up Specialised Training Services providing various services to the plastics industry including the coaching of up and coming young black managers.
Christopher compiled the first learnership programme for plasticians in all aspects of plastic manufacturing including synthetic materials.
Moving forward he plans to become involved with corporate communications and exercise his journalistic and photographic skills and focus on employer branding and competence supply. He also plans to operate his own e-learning company, to travel more and work towards building a world-class company.
