Rob van Staden

I am a highly professional, focused, driven and energetic individual, who, above everything else is a person dedicated to harnessing relationships and trust. I thrive on human interaction in order to promote relationships and drive my phenomenal work ethic in my varying fields of expertise. A true believer in the age old adage "If you can dream it, you can do it". My overriding strength is my ability to develop and maintain relationships. I am an avid team player who creates powerful team cultures in all of the countries I have developed in. I have developed hundreds of highly successful supermarkets in many markets around the globe during the last 15 years and have developed strong long-lasting relationships with all the business owners in these countries.

Over and above developing the supermarket industry in these emerging markets my expertise includes (but is not limited to) Global Supermarket Retail Development, providing leadership & overall country management & operations, mentoring of senior management teams, setting of budgets, developmental design and layouts, 3D design rendering, procurement of equipment for same, site selection demographics, lease negotiation and final project delivery. I also have an intrinsic knowledge from a Consulting, Commercial, Marketing, Human resources, Logistics & Business administration perspective. I am pedantic about setting a development strategy for each individual business that I engage with.

My professional work experience has been filled with many achievements over the years, from owning my own development company in South Africa, fast foods and restaurants to completing countless turnkey projects & designing and project managing specialized projects. I was head hunted by SPAR South Africa in 2002 to manage their development department with a crew of 9 project managers and 4 designers. I then joined SPAR International in 2009 and pre-dominantly developed and grew the SPAR brand globally in emerging markets. These being the countries of Russia (mainly the Siberian regions Irkutsk, Chelyabinsk, Tyumen and Krasnoyarsk), Mongolia, Poland, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Malta, Nigeria, Cameroon, Malawi, Zambia & Zimbabwe. Above countries included, I have travelled to 62 countries in total to conduct due diligence on companies in these countries looking to join the SPAR Global brand. Over and above developing the supermarket industry in these emerging markets, my expertise includes (but is not limited to) Global Supermarket Retail Development, providing leadership & overall country management & operations, mentoring of senior management teams, setting of budgets, developmental design and layouts, 3D design rendering, procurement of equipment for same, site selection demographics, lease negotiation and final project delivery,  I also have an intrinsic knowledge from a Consulting, Commercial, Marketing, Human resources, Logistics & Business administration perspective. I am pedantic about setting a development strategy for each individual business that I engage with.

Managing Project Complexity – Delft University 2020

                                                Negotiation Skills Certificate – Amsterdam 2011

                                                FMI – Food Retailers Certificate – Orlando USA 2013

FMI – Food Retail Strategies & Tactics Certificate – Chicago USA 2014

                                                Military College Diploma – Radiography 1983

                                                Franchise Operations Certificate 1985

                                                Staff Management Certificate 1989

                                                Effective Franchising Management Certificate 1993

                                                Business Management Certificate 1997

                                                Development and Business Strategy Certificate 1999