Speaker Profile

Jan Potgieter, Founder and CEO, The Negotiation Academy – Europe
Jan Potgieter is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Negotiation Academy – Europe (TNA - Europe), a specialist negotiation consulting and training organisation headquartered in London. TNA - Europe features a consulting board comprised of some of the most respected leaders in the realm of negotiations worldwide. A leading proponent of a best practice approach to negotiations, Jan has proven instrumental in integrating an approach to negotiation that seeks to create a corporate negotiation capability within international client organisations. After gaining a thorough understanding of the client’s organisational reality, Jan is able to bridge the gap between organisational imperatives and the status quo by designing or redesigning a negotiation strategy supported by processes that seamlessly integrate with the client organisation’s existing infrastructure to unlock bottom line value. Jan gained an MBA specialising in Negotiation Skills under the leadership of Professor Manie Spoelstra. A corporate architect, Jan’s entrepreneurial spirit was ignited through the market need for a principle-centred, best practice based, negotiation consulting and training approach that results in the creation of an enduring organisational negotiation capability. Jan is relentless in his focus on creating rapid bottom line results together with strengthened client relationships and market reputation. Jan began his career in the financial services industry, serving as a Certified Financial Planner and a Broker Consultant. Excelling in a number of different roles for leading organisations, he consistently outperformed his growth objectives. Throughout his career, he has exhibited a particular flair for gaining a foothold in mature, competitive markets. The next challenge for Jan was the Information Technology (IT) sector. Starting off as a District Sales Manager in the complex enterprise software application environment, he soon graduated up the ranks to be named General Manager and Public Sector Sales Director for a global systems integrator. As a result of his corporate background, Jan managed to gain extensive experience in both the private & public sector environments. During his career in the corporate sector, Jan consistently outperformed his growth objectives. His negotiation skills and experience were shaped by the multi-million dollar deals successfully closed and managed on a day to day basis. To date, Jan has been involved in negotiating, or consulting to, commercial deals totalling in excess of $ 4 billion. Jan has conducted assignments globally and has lived in Europe, America and Africa. He has a particular interest in complex M&A and cross cultural negotiations involving the deployment of teams for optimal value creation and effectiveness. Jan brings to TNA – Europe a considerable specialisation in applying strategic negotiation best practice to the executive domain. In addition to conducting negotiation workshops, Jan regularly consults to leading organisations locally and internationally on negotiation strategies and best practice processes. Jan has significant experience in cross industry, cross cultural negotiations which he has gained whilst on assignment with global organisations such as IBM, BP, GKN Driveline, Schlumberger, Motorola, Nycomed, Altana AG, Irving Oil, BOC Gases and The Hilton Group. Jan enjoys frequent invitations to speak at local and global seminars, and has lectured at universities and business schools as far afield as Poland, Ireland and South Korea. Jan has deployed innovation as a key driver to the market positioning of The Negotiation Academy – Europe. To obtain different results from competitors, he advocates that organisations must design and deploy innovative and challenging strategies and supporting processes which serve to clearly distinguish them from their competitors. He is passionate about deploying constant innovation in the discipline of negotiation as a key differentiator to unlock competitive advantage. Founder and driver of TNA-Europe’s unique methodology, Jan has been formally recognised for his company’s innovative approach to delivering real business benefit. TNA-Europe is the proud winner of the World of Learning Award for Best Instructor Led Training in the United Kingdom (advanced negotiation training) 2004.	Presentations by this speaker: Three key success factors for fundraising negotiation