Futurist. Strategist
Based: Durban
Chantell Ilbury is one of South Africa’s leading strategists and facilitators, working both locally and internationally. She specialises in guiding companies and other organisations through their strategic conversations on the future, and she believes passionately in the power of scenario thinking to unlock the best ideas on strategy.
Chantell Ilbury was born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe on 30th April 1961. She was educated at Eveline High School before moving on to the University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg where she completed her BSc. in Chemistry and a postgraduate Higher Diploma in Education. She has since completed an Executive MBA from the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business and has also studied Strategic Negotiation at Harvard Business School in Boston.
After university Chantell Ilbury started a career in education, firstly as a teacher and then as a designer of computer-based training material for industry. At the same time she also developed bridging courses for post-matric students and accepted positions to lecture Chemistry and Education. In 1995 Chantell expanded her approach to education when she founded Scienceworks – South Africa’s first science communication company. She pioneered a radical learner-based approach to science education, which she then incorporated into the design, manufacturing, retail and eventual export of a range of 16 creative science kits aimed at the 7-16 age group.
Chantell Illbury was invited to be the consultant co-ordinator for The Olwazini Discovery Centre in Pietermaritzburg – South Africa’s first combined science and cultural centre. Chantell remains committed to education and has been appointed to the board of directors of Clifton School – a leading independent boys’ school based in Durban.
It was while Chantell was at UCT Graduate School of Business in 2000 that she first met Clem Sunter. They shared their ideas on scenario planning that led to the writing of their best-selling book The Mind of a Fox. The second book Games Foxes Play was launched in April 2005; and their third, Socrates & the Fox, in November 2007.
Chantell Ilbury has also lectured on strategy and scenario planning at a number of South Africa’s top business schools. She is an accomplished speaker on effective management in times of uncertainty; and has addressed audiences as far afield as England, Ireland, the Netherlands, the United States, Australia, Singapore, Austria, Italy, Kuwait, Jamaica, Tanzania, Jersey and the Isle of Man, as well as throughout Southern Africa.
Chantell is married to columnist and broadcaster Daryl Ilbury and they have two children. Her hobbies include travel and reading.
