About Nicola Tyler

Nicola has always been fascinated by the power of thinking, how the way we look at a problem can completely change the outcome. For more than 25 years, she has worked with leaders, teams, and young people to help them think differently™ - to move beyond the obvious, to unlock creativity, and to design meaningful change.

Nicola is a serial entrepreneur and passionate business thinker who is committed to shared value creation, job creation and the triple bottom line. She understands the balance of risk and reward and is always ready to challenge the status quo to explore new directions in thinking.

As a fourth generation entrepreneur she has fearlessly started companies to bring great thinking and minds to South Africa. Following an opportunity to work with one of the world's greatest thinkers, Dr Edward de Bono, she returned to South Africa to start her first company, Competitive Thinking, bringing his work to the region, and training hundreds of executives and their teams to think laterally. She later launched Business Results Group, and partnered with GIBS to launch the Progress Conference Series. Committed to bringing the world to Africa she hosted events with some of the world's greatest business thinkers, including

Dave Ulrich, world respected HR authority, author and developer of the HR Business Partner concept,
Martin Seligman father of positive psychology and former Professor at Philadelphia University USA
Martin Lindstrom globally admired brand guru, author of Brandwashed, and sought after podcaster, author and advisor to global brands
Robert Kaplan author of The Balanced Scorecard and world respected Harvard Professor on strategic thinking and strategy implementation
Dave Norton co-author with Robert Kaplan on Execution and the Balanced Scorecard
Ricardo Semler the Brazilian innovator and business disruptor, author of Maverick and widely respected
Tom Peters former McKinsey partner, developer of the McKinsey 7S Model, author of In Search of Excellence, Organisation Liberation, Circle of Innovation, the Excellence Dividend and more
Liz Wiseman author of Multipliers™, Rookie Smarts and Impact Players
Richard Koch author of the 80/20 Principle and The 80/20 Manager, serial entrepreneur and investor

In 2023 Nicola decided to start all over again, this time focusing her time and energy on thinking - strategic thinking, creative thinking, critical thinking and design thinking. In the same year she launched The Thinking Company to work with clients to help them think differently™, be and do differently and to transform differently. Teaming up with partners in the UK Transform Differently helps companies with large scale people led transformation. And one of her partners, Paul Cobban, who spearheaded the transformation of DBS bank in Singapore, recently voted the best bank in the world for the 7th year in a row.

Nicola has a reputation for pushing the boundaries of thinking. She is as comfortable on the shop floor as she is in the boardroom. She has travelled the world, working and presenting in over 20 different countries. She has worked with leadership teams, international Executive Teams, Global NGO's, Governments and Parastatals. Her work has seen her travel from Argentina to Austria, from Berlin to Bahrain, from Cape Town to Cambodia, and many other countries and cities in between.

Most recently she has launched the Thinking Academy, a new Division of The Thinking Company offering a 3-day Thinking Skills Bootcamp (Think Like de Bono) created especially for 18–25-year-olds.

COMING SOON: Over the years Nicola has written extensively on her travels around the world, guarding her thoughts and keeping many of them private. This year she has committed to sharing much of that knowledge and is excited to bring her first book, The Little Book of Big Advice to the public. Follow her Think Differently™ newsletter on LinkedIn and get an invite to the book launch, scheduled for 1 September 2025. All proceeds are being donated to her Non-Profit Foundation, The Thinking Fund to sponsor education and thinking skills programs for disadvantaged youth in Africa.

Outside of work Nicola is endlessly curious about people, ideas, and the future. She rides her bike, runs the mountains, travels, explores, fine dines, reads, shares many moments with friends, and loves an off-heat hike into the wilderness.