Nicole Robinson

Chief Marketing Officer of andBeyond

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A little bit about Nicole…

A chartered accountant by trade, after completing her Bachelor’s degree in Accounting at the University of the Witwatersrand, Nicole joined global giant PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to complete her articles. During her time at PwC she was allocated to an audit of &Beyond and realised that she had found a company whose ethics resonated deeply with her.

After completing her articles and qualifying as a CA (SA), Nicole joined &Beyond as Group Financial Accountant in December 1999. Her first project was to complete the financial statements and tax returns for the group’s subsidiaries, which gave her great insight into the company’s history and legal background.

Nicole left &Beyond at the end of 2001 to travel with her husband, but was still able to complete three large projects for the company during this period. These included placing the Safari Shops on a stock management system, standardising &Beyond’s chart of account and automating the company’s consolidation process.

On her return to South Africa in 2003, Nicole re-joined &Beyond as Group Finance Manager. She was responsible for group reporting (financial and management reporting) as well as group tax and the group’s audit. In 2009 she was appointed as Group Risk Manager and was given the task of standardising the group’s systems and processes. Working closely with her, Nicole documented the administrative processes for &Beyond’s lodges and managed to reduce their operations systems from nine different permutations to two.

During this time, Nicole also worked on an internal project dedicated to constant process improvement and, at the end of this period, was appointed Commercial Director. In this position, she used her financial qualifications and years of experience at &Beyond to oversee the company’s reservations, product, systems and touring support functions.

Nicole’s skills surrounding people and processes, as well as her passion for developing people saw her promoted to Chief Marketing Officer in 2015. In this position, she utilises her extensive knowledge of &Beyond and the travel industry, augmented with specialised digital marketing expertise, to continue to build the &Beyond brand.

Nicole is married to Jonathan (for 19 years) and has two children, Jessica (11) and Ethan (7); they live in Saxonwold, Johannesburg.