About SA Business Coaches
More than sixty business coaches.
Competence here is defined, not claimed.
Since 1998. Over 3,000 assignments, 80% at C-suite level.
A system, not a personality.
SA Business Coaches was founded in 1998 by Dr Elana Siew and Neale Roberts, and operates countrywide as one of South Africa’s most established coaching organisations — delivering structured, measurable outcomes for corporate executives, business owners and entrepreneurs.
Our coach development programme attracts MBA graduates, industrial psychologists and seasoned executives who meet our selection criteria and complete more than 360 hours of accredited training before working with a single client.
The methodology is not borrowed or adapted. It is proprietary, academically grounded, and tested across more than 3,000 coaching assignments, 80% of them at C-suite and senior management level.
This is a system built on evidence.
The two people who built it
An industrial psychologist and a business leader. The combination is the reason the methodology has both academic grounding and commercial teeth.
Dr Elana Siew
Co-founder · Industrial Psychologist
Dr Siew’s PhD, completed in 2016, examined the state of Flow and its role in elevating performance. Those principles run through how our coaches develop personal mastery in their clients.
She is also the author of Competence Refined: The 5 Components of Competence, the book behind the B.E.A.K.S.™ model every coach on our panel is selected against.
Neale Roberts
Co-founder · Head Coach
Neale led the South African Bond University team to second place in the NASDAQ Business Planning Competition in San Diego, against forty other business schools.
He leads coach selection, supervision and the development of the D.I.T.A.R.™ framework and B.O.P.™ model.
Our definition of competence
B.E.A.K.S.™ — what makes a coach competent
Competence is a word used loosely. We define it precisely, in five parts, and a coach is competent in a given context only when all five are present. It is the standard every coach on our panel is selected and assessed against — and the reason we can answer “is this coach any good?” with something other than an opinion.
Behaviour
The actions and manner in which the work is performed — from arriving on time to how feedback is given so a client can use it.
Experience
Not years served. What has been drawn from each engagement and carried into the next.
Ability
The natural aptitude the work requires. It can be developed, but it must be there to begin with.
Knowledge
Of coaching, and of every element of a business — not business in general.
Skills
The practical application of knowledge, ability and experience.
“The most important element is behaviour. It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.”
Dr Elana Siew
Dr Elana Siew on the five components of competence
How a coach gets onto our panel
Every prospective coach is interviewed before admission. That interview exists because of the “A” in B.E.A.K.S.™ — ability can be developed, but it has to be present first, and no amount of training substitutes for it.
Those admitted complete more than 360 hours: five assessed modules, 13 live facilitated workshop days, 20 hours coaching a fellow delegate, 20 hours being coached, and a business plan. The pass mark is 65%, and every module is assessed before the next begins. Each delegate is evaluated by SA Business Coaches evaluators who are also COMENSA Senior Coach Evaluators.
The programme attracts Doctoral graduates, MBA graduates, CA(SA)’s, attorneys, industrial psychologists and senior executives — people arriving with the E and the K already partly built, who need the B and the S shaped to a professional standard. Training covers 28 local and international Business and Coaching core competencies.
Coaches are then selected, monitored and evaluated against the same five components for as long as they work with us. See how coaches are trained →
More than sixty coaches trained and qualified
Since 2015 we have trained and qualified more than 60 business coaches. The coaches below form our current panel: active, practising coaches who take part in our ongoing professional development and work under SA Business Coaches’ referral standards.
Who accredits us
SA Business Coaches is internationally accredited by the International Coach Register (ICR), which is ISO 9001 certified by LRQA — Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance — and whose certification procedures are ISO 17024 based.
In South Africa we are an approved COMENSA Silver Training Provider, listed on the COMENSA Training Provider register. COMENSA is recognised by SAQA as South Africa’s professional body for coaching.
Credentialing is COMENSA’s version of Accreditation. Completing our programme qualifies a coach to apply to either body; each sets its own criteria. COMENSA has relationships with some international accreditation bodies who will Recognise Prior Learning for COMENSA credentialed coaches for international accreditation.
The other two frameworks
B.E.A.K.S.™ defines who coaches. Two further frameworks govern the work itself.
D.I.T.A.R.™ — Diagnose, Identify, Test, Apply, Review — is the five-stage structure every engagement runs on.
B.O.P.™ — Business Mastery, Other People Mastery, Personal Mastery — is where a problem is located before it is worked on.
Twenty-eight years of it
Founded in 1998, and still run by the two people who started it.
September 2026
We exhibited at The Business Show :: Africa 2026, hosted by the National Small Business Chamber, on Stand C31 — two days of conversations with business owners, corporate buyers of coaching, and professionals considering coaching as a second career.
Three ways we work
Corporate & Executive
Governed coaching for organisations where leadership risk is real.
Owners & Entrepreneurs
Structured coaching for owner-managed businesses that intend to grow.
Asked often. Answered once.
What does B.E.A.K.S.™ stand for?
Behaviour, Experience, Ability, Knowledge and Skills — the five components of competence. A person is competent in a given context only when all five are present. It is the standard every SA Business Coaches coach is selected and assessed against, and it is set out in full in Dr Elana Siew’s book, Competence Refined: The 5 Components of Competence.
What makes a business coach competent?
Not years served, and not a certificate on its own. Competence needs all five components together: the behaviours the work requires, experience actually drawn on rather than merely accumulated, the natural ability to coach, knowledge of both coaching and of every element of a business, and the skill to apply all of it in a live session.
Who founded SA Business Coaches?
Dr Elana Siew, an industrial psychologist whose 2016 PhD examined the state of Flow, and Neale Roberts, who led the South African Bond University team to second place in the NASDAQ Business Planning Competition. They founded the business in 1998 and it has operated continuously since.
How many coaches does SA Business Coaches have?
More than sixty Qualified SA Business Coaches, working across corporate and executive environments and with business owners and entrepreneurs. Every one qualified through our own ICR-accredited programme rather than being recruited from elsewhere.
Are you accredited?
SA Business Coaches is accredited by the International Coach Register (ICR), which is ISO 9001 certified by LRQA and whose certification procedures are ISO 17024 based. We are also an approved COMENSA Silver Training Provider. COMENSA is recognised by SAQA as South Africa’s professional body for coaching.
Talk to the people who built it.
A diagnostic conversation, not a sales call. We will tell you honestly whether we are the right fit.