Trustee and CFO
Wendy Addison began her career performing on stage as a professional ballet dancer, pivoting, then qualifying as an Accountant in the 1980s. Climbing the corporate ladder, Wendy became the only female executive in her team, operating at board level as the International Group Treasurer for a publicly listed company.
In 2000, standing up for the values that support her principles Wendy blew the whistle on the CEOs in what is now recognised as ‘South Africa’s Enron’, the biggest corporate scandal in South Africa’s history.
Since securing justice in an 11-year war of attrition, Wendy has maximised her experience through studying the Social psychology and Neuroscience of Decision making at Stanford University in addition to being accredited to train for Courageous Conversations, a course developed over twenty-five years at Stanford by Professor Emeritus Philip Zimbardo and Dr Lynne Henderson Ph.D.
Wendy founded SpeakOut SpeakUp Ltd, a storytelling consultancy and training company in 2012 which provides training, lectures and talks to create an awareness of Whistleblowing and to move people towards Courageous Conversations.
Wendy is at the cutting edge of behavioural change, currently in collaboration with the University of East London‘s Virtual Reality Lab to develop Virtual Reality immersions for Courageous Conversations.
Additionally, Wendy is a lecturer at Surrey University and Warwick Business School, is a contributing member of the UNCAC Coalition, the Corruption Research Group of the Surrey University and sits on the advisory board of the Whistleblowing Research Unit which runs the International Whistleblowing Research Network at Middlesex University in the United Kingdom.
In recognition of Wendy’s courage and transcendence, she was recognised as a Business Disruptor, Innovator and Rebel with a Cause, alongside Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet, Simon Sinek, Kaepernick and Pat MCcord in March 2019, by the magazine Think, Act.
In Oct 2019 Wendy was nominated for a ‘Lifetime Outstanding Achievement Award’ by the OECD for her work in the communication, and Whistleblowing space. In the same year, she contributed to the OECDs’ handbook on Public Integrity by writing a white paper on Openness.
In Nov 2020 Wendy contributed to a paper for the United Nations Principles of Responsible Investment, on how to cultivate a speak-up and listen-up culture.
As a professional performer in the arts coupled with her medal-earning skydiving at the World Air Games and her business experience, Wendy leverages from these unique experiences to share and demonstrate the agility, resilience and self awareness now required for our world to flourish.