Kirsty Chadwick – EdTech Founder, Purpose-Led Leader, Lifelong Learner

In the final episode in series 1, I catch up with Kirsty Chadwick, Founder and Chief Vision Officer of The Training Room Online – TTRO – who joins me after a 25-year international life that has taken her from London to Cape Town to the Middle East, and now into a nomadic chapter across the UK and Europe.

Kirsty grew up in Inglewood, Taranaki. Her early dream of becoming a professional pianist was literally & brutally cut short – you’ll have to listen to the pod for details – which led her initially into teaching.

She left New Zealand on what was meant to be a two-year OE. After teaching briefly in London, Kirsty moved into direct marketing, financial services, and then business-building.

In 2005, having never been to Africa, she moved to Cape Town which became home for the next 20 years.

The idea for TTRO came when Kirsty saw young South Africans with qualifications, but lacking the employability skills needed to succeed.

In 2008, she founded TTRO, focused on how technology could change the way we educate and develop people. Today, TTRO works across digital learning, capability development, AI-enabled learning, immersive technologies, and learning systems designed to help people prepare for work and whatever technology throws at us next.

We talk about early loss, resilience, entrepreneurship, South Africa, doing business in the Middle East, the loneliness of leadership, and how to stop words like purpose, impact and transformation from becoming corporate wallpaper.

TTRO’s tagline is Never Stop Learning, which feels like a fair description of Kirsty’s life so far.

This is a conversation about adversity, interrupted plans, unlikely pivots, big moves, hard losses, building, teaching, adapting, and learning the lessons life sometimes puts in front of us more than once.

A huge thanks to Kirsty for joining me on Kiwi Flees. She is yet another thoughtful, driven Kiwi doing something meaningful offshore, while staying connected to the tribe back home.

Support the show

If while listening to Kiwi Flees you’ve ever caught yourself thinking, “Someone really should give this guy three dollars,” I bring great news. You can now be the someone you’ve always dreamed of by clicking on the support link above. But if money’s tight, please don’t – listening to and sharing the show is hugely appreciated.

On behalf of OFNZ, thank you for listening and sharing the pod.

My huge thanks to the Kiwi Flees for candid conversations, and to my sound engineer Robbie Mulligan and the team at Matrix Digital (Wgtn).

Thank you, too, to Kea for promoting the pod.