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“Brought a new thinking in defining leadership, one that is people centric. It took a while for the team to come around to the Schuitema way of thinking. But when landed, it just makes so much sense!“
– GIBS Business School
“The content & learning process has opened up my heart, eyes and mind. It has made me realize the importance of how leadership and power must be understood!”
– Ibrahim Nana
Etsko Schuitema is the founder of the Schuitema Group, a consultancy dedicated to the enhancement of human excellence based on the Care & Growth model. This model was developed out of his extensive research and work with many organisations in South Africa and around the world.
There are two basic premises of the Care & Growth model. The first that there is a fundamental connection between organisational excellence and personal excellence. The second is that connection must be ethical and moral to achieve leadership excellence.
By exploring these relationships from an organisational, leadership and individual perspective, Etsko has created a powerful management framework that has been used successfully in a variety of sectors from banking to agriculture – in over 26 countries and on 5 continents.
Born into a mining family in South Africa, Etsko grew up in Johannesburg. After doing an Honours degree in Social Anthropology at the University of the Witwatersrand, he got a job a graduate researcher with The Chamber of Mines of South Africa’s Research Organisation.
Employed specifically by the Human Resources Laboratory of the organisation, his work initially focused on the issue of conflict on gold mines in South Africa. At the end of the overthrow of the apartheid regime, the mines were swept up in the upheaval that followed. The work he did led to the development of a framework for understanding trust in this very volatile environment.
Using this basis of this research he was asked to head the Human Resources Laboratory’s Industry Project and implement his insights. This is where the Care & Growth model originated. It was met with significant success within the mining sector. Such success in fact that Etsko left his role with the Chamber of Mines and along with a group of colleagues, to establish a consultancy where this model could be more widely disseminated.
Over the past 30 years, The Schuitema Group under the leadership of Etsko has, alongside several associates, worked in over 26 countries in a large range of sectors, creating powerful working relationships to implement the Care & Growth model empowering individuals on all levels of these organisations.
Etsko has taught at several universities, including University of Cambridge, the Lahore University
of Management Science, Cape Town University, GIBS and Wits. He has also written five books.
Legitimate Leadership:
In this talk, Etsko introduces his Care and Growth Leadership model. The model describes the essential requirements for legitimate leadership that would earn the trust, loyalty and engagement of people.
Team Excellence:
By looking at understanding the dynamics of teams, Etsko describes the conditions under which team members engage their colleagues with the intent to set their colleagues up to succeed. He goes on to prove that the intent to set others up to succeed accounts for success of groups.
Personal Excellence:
Personal excellence is really about understanding how we manufacture security, fulfilment, power and harmony with others on the inside, in our intent.
His talk will be customised for each client, addressing and focusing on their key objectives.
Assad Schuitema is the CEO of Schuitema Group and a leading voice on ethical leadership and organisational transformation. At the heart of his work lies the Care and Growth™ philosophy – a framework for enabling people and building high-trust, high-performance cultures.
Assad’s approach to organisational culture is rooted in a sophisticated understanding of how human intention shapes organisations and their culture, relationships (leadership and peer), and the lived experience of the individuals themselves. He believes that at the heart of effective leadership lies the responsibility to serve and empower others, cultivating environments where people and organisations can genuinely thrive.
As CEO, Assad guides Schuitema Group’s strategic direction and consults with executive teams navigating complex cultural change. His leadership bridges clients, consultants, and internal teams, uniting them around a shared commitment to meaningful transformation through the empowerment of individuals.
Assad officially joined the firm in 2014, bringing with him a diverse portfolio of expertise including content development, project and operations management, facilitation, coaching, and consulting. But his relationship with the Care and Growth philosophy runs deeper: he was raised with its principles by its originator – his father, Etsko Schuitema – and has lived its values from a young age.
He speaks with clarity, depth, and authenticity on topics including:
• Ethical leadership and spiritual maturity in business
• Building cultures of trust through Care and Growth
• Rethinking happiness and human flourishing
• The role of contribution in leadership excellence
• Leading transformation from the inside out
Assad Schuitema brings a unique blend of philosophical depth, practical wisdom, and organisational experience to the business school stage. His formal training in philoso+phy has equipped him with strong conceptual clarity and the ability to seamlessly integrate and simplify complex ideas. As a result, his sessions are not only intellectually engaging but also personally transformative—inviting audiences to reflect deeply, think critically, and lead with purpose.
Assad Schuitema is the CEO of Schuitema Group, responsible for providing strategic direction both internally and to clients as they navigate cultural transformation. At the core of his leadership is the commitment to aligning the organisation’s strategy with the Care and Growth philosophy, ensuring that both associates and the support team are empowered to deliver exceptional service to clients.
Assad plays a pivotal role in bridging the gap between associ+ates, clients, and the support team, fostering a culture of collabo+ ration and growth. His leadership is driven by the belief that every leader holds an uncompromising responsibility to enable others, creating an environment where people thrive and organisations achieve sustainable excellence.
Assad joined the Schuitema team officially in 2014. His experience within Schuitema Group includes content development, project and operations management, facilitation, coaching and consult+ ing. But his relationship with Care & Growth started very young as he is the son of Etsko Schuitema, who founded and established both Care & Growth and Schuitema Group.
Assad is currently a Phd candidate at the University of the Witwatersrand. His research provides a critique of the current state of modern academic literature of the topics of happiness and human well-being.
And Care and Growth really does have significant implications for how we should approach our own lives and for how we set up our organisations, and indeed societies. But, to enjoy the benefits of coming closer to truth in the way we live requires that people challenge some foundational assumptions.
Assad was a sessional lecturer for the Philosophy department at the University of the Witwatersrand. He lectured various courses, the content of these courses included logic and critical thinking, ethics, epistemology, metaphysics and classical philosophy.
Legitimate Leadership:
In this talk, Assad introduces his Care and Growth Leadership model. The model describes the essential requirements forlegitimate leadership that would earn the trust, loyalty and engagement of people.
Team Excellence:
By looking at understanding the dynamics of teams, Assad describes the conditions under which team members engage their colleagues with the intent to set their colleagues up to succeed. He goes on to prove that the intent to set others up to succeed accounts for success of groups.
Personal Excellence:
Personal excellence is really about understanding how we manufacture security, fullment, power and harmony with others on the inside, in our intent.
His talk will be customised for each client, addressing and focusing on their key objectives.