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Meet Charlie 

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Charlene "Charlie" O'Connor

Founder, Director & Learning Solutions Strategist

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Learning Strategy | Programme & Curriculum Design | Leadership & Capability Development

Professional Profile

Charlie is the founder and a director of Activate Learning and serves as a learning solutions strategist. With more than 28 years of experience across learning and development, human resources and organisational capability development, she helps organisations translate business and people-development priorities into practical learning solutions.
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Her expertise spans the complete learning-development process—from identifying capability needs and shaping learning strategy to architecting programmes, designing learning experiences and supporting implementation.
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Charlie has designed hundreds of learning solutions and trained more than 15,000 professionals across Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Her work combines strategic thinking, evidence-informed design and practical workplace application to strengthen capability and support meaningful performance.

Charlie O'Connor’s Approach to Learning & Capability Development

Charlie believes that effective learning begins with understanding the organisation, its people and the performance challenge that needs to be addressed.

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She takes the time to listen, ask thoughtful questions and understand the workplace context before recommending a solution. Her approach is structured and strategic while remaining practical, collaborative and deeply human.

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Known for her energy, pragmatism and ability to connect with people at every level of an organisation, Charlie creates learning experiences that are relevant, engaging and immediately applicable in the workplace.

Career Impact

  • More than 28 years of learning and development experience

  • Over 15,000 professionals trained

  • More than 250 blended and digital learning programmes designed and implemented

  • Learning solutions delivered across Africa, the Middle East and Europe

  • Experience supporting multinational organisations, government entities and growing businesses

eLearning & digital learning design

Areas of Expertise

Learning strategy & capability development

Learning needs analysis

Programme & curriculum architecture

Leadership & management experience

Human skills & workplace capability development

Blended learning & microlearning

Learning academies & modular pathways

Workshop design & facilitation

Assessment design

Learning project  management

Stakeholder engagement &  management

Skills development & workplace compliance

GenAI-enabled instructional design

Learning  programme management

Collaboration & relationship management

Career Background

Charlie’s career spans corporate learning, human resources, consulting and organisational capability development across hospitality, retail, banking, financial services, government, telecommunications, mining and management consulting.

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Her career began in operational training, where she discovered her ability to connect with people and bring learning to life. She later held regional and group learning-leadership roles with organisations including Nando’s, African Bank, Hilton International and TransUnion before establishing her independent consultancy in 2010.

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Since then, Charlie has partnered with organisations across Africa, the Middle East and Europe to design and deliver leadership programmes, learning academies, blended learning journeys, digital learning solutions and workplace capability initiatives.

Qualifications & Professional Development

Charlie holds:
 

  • An NQF Level 8 qualification in Advanced Human Resource Management from the University of South Africa

  • An NQF Level 7 qualification in Human Resource Management from the University of South Africa

  • Training & Development qualifications in facilitation, training needs analysis and programme development

  • Assessor Level 1 and 2 certification

  • Additional professional development in learning design, leadership development, coaching and digital learning

Selected Client Experience

Charlie’s experience includes work undertaken for organisations such as PwC, NEOM, Dubai Tourism, Mashreq Bank, Bank Muscat, Absa, Nedbank, Standard Bank, FNB, MTN, Vodacom, MultiChoice, AB InBev, Hilton International, ICLEI Africa and several South African government entities.

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This experience includes work completed through Activate Learning, her independent consulting practice and previous professional roles.

How Charlie Supports Clients

Charlie partners with clients from initial discovery through to design, development and implementation.

Depending on the need, she can create an individual learning solution or architect an integrated capability-development journey.

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Her work includes:

  • Identifying learning, performance and capability needs

  • Developing learning strategies and capability pathways

  • Architecting programmes, curricula and learning journeys

  • Creating customised workshops and learning experiences

  • Designing blended, digital and microlearning solutions

  • Developing facilitator guides, learner resources and assessments

  • Facilitating leadership, management and human-skills programmes

  • Managing complex learning projects from concept to implementation

  • Helping organisations translate learning into sustained workplace application

Let’s Create Learning That Makes a Difference

Partner with Charlie to create a practical, people-centred learning solution shaped around your organisation, your people and the impact you want to achieve.

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