Taryn Lee Owner of aHa! Training and Development, leadership roles in Toastmasters International and Professional Speakers Association of Southern Africa. With a degree in Industrial Psychology and more than six years of experience as a trainer and professional speaker in workplace settings, Taryn-lee is uniquely qualified to analyze your corporate training needs and design a plan that works for your employees. She has travelled extensively and worked in many different societies and cultures, and brings a keen intercultural awareness to her customized training packages.
Lynn Vermaak started her career as a social scientist and community development specialist at the Mamelodi People with Disabilities Centre. She was then asked to join the CSIR as a social science researcher and behavioural change specialist. There she did numerous research studies including a national project in collaboration with the Department of Transport on changing road users behaviour. The project which formed the foundation of her Masters in Social Science, formed a key element of road safety community driven processes in South Africa. Based on her research studies, she formed part on an international team of researchers who assisted the Transport Research Laboratory in the UK, as a representative of South Africa, to develop World Policy Guidelines on Community-driven Road Safety and Research.
Part of her work at the CSIR, also included developing educational material and workshops for the training of local, provincial and national road traffic authorities, as well as community members from across South Africa.
As part of this programme she trained community members, leaders, traffic officials, local authorities and provincial traffic departments in community-driven processes and behaviour change.
She also initiated the first Community-driven, Social Marketing Processes, as local and provincial campaigns in collaboration with local, government and business partners, such as BP.
Based on the local, national and international educational material and workshops she developed, she was asked by the Centre for Innovation, Leadership and Learning Academy (CiLLA) of the CSIR to develop, facilitate and train CSIR colleagues on Creative Thinking Skills for Innovation.
The CiLLA academy then approached her to join their team in a position of human capital development and training. There she was responsible for the facilitation of various training programmes, including the CSIR monthly On-boarding programme, CSIR Mentoring programme, Creativity and Innovation training, Team building, Research and Innovation core skills programme, and she assisted with the SLP (Science Leadership Programme).
She developed various training material such as Facilitation Training Skills, Creativity and Innovation Training, Whole Brain Thinking for Success, On-boarding Programme, Career Management and Success, and Team Work for Researchers, Scientists and Technologists. She facilitated various team building sessions, ideation sessions, strategic sessions, as well as Thinking Preference Profiles for career development and team building.
After an enriching and satisfying journey at the CSIR, she then joined Taryn-lee Kearney, the founder and CEO of Aha Training and Development, as a partner to follow her dreams and establish and facilitate a unique training and development initiative in South Africa and internationally.
During this period she has completed various projects, trained on diverse topics and facilitated various strategy and ideation sessions. She also facilitated and designed team building sessions and interventions.
Her passion lies in mentoring, creativity and innovation programmes, ideation, soft skills training and development, facilitation, team building, and the development and design of training curricula. She is passionate about making a difference in the lives of others through training and development.
Through her experience of being mentored by others throughout her career, she strongly believes in the power of mentoring, and is passionate about sharing this with others. She is an “Aha” Moment cheerleader. She loves “Eureka” moments.
She is also a Mental Health Advocate, and believes strongly that “Your Mental Health Matters. You Matter.” She is a team member of the #RockbottomProjectSA, an annual Mental Health Campaign.
