Human CV | 2-page depth | Founder | Value lens: zar2026 | Live from career.yaml

Christopher Damian Barker

Founder | Turnaround Director | ex-McKinsey/Deloitte Director | Workplace AI at scale (725 executives trained, governed AI product built)

Chris.Barker@FutureForesight.com | +27 83 625 8249 | Johannesburg, South Africa

Summary

Founder and business builder with ventures across healthcare, telecoms, weather, education, and AI; documented exits and disposals; R7.4bn raised across ventures; and operating experience inside Africa's largest NGO. The record combines starting from zero, winning institutional backing, scaling delivery, and knowing when to sell, rescue, or close.

Selected Experience

Aug 2023 - Present | Johannesburg, South Africa

Co-founder, GenAI Executive Masterclass Lead & Fractional CAiO, Imagineers.ai

  • Co-founded Imagineers.ai and built South Africa's deepest workplace-AI practice: 725 senior executives trained two full days each, 1,400 executive days across 45 masterclasses, R30m ARR across training, platform, advisory, and forward-deployed engineering.
  • No other South African training organisation has put this volume of senior executives through two full days each, which means the curriculum has been rebuilt 45 times against how real executives actually fail with AI rather than against theory.

Mar 2002 - Dec 2017 | Johannesburg, South Africa

Founding Partner, FutureForesight

  • Founded FutureForesight as the vehicle for overlapping strategy, business-build, telecoms, healthcare, weather, education, and turnaround work.
  • Delivered child projects including CSIR BioPad, Neotel, RightMed, MTN, Aquarius Platinum, OBP, Seacom, TopTV, Stutt Brick, Africa Weather, Eeziphone, and Vizier eMaths.

Jan 2001 - Jun 2006 | Johannesburg, South Africa

Co-founder & USAID Board Representative, Right to Care

  • Co-founded what is now Africa's largest NGO, with R1.7bn FY21 funding and more than R7bn ethically dispersed.
  • Pioneered workplace HIV treatment and board-level buy-in across South Africa.

Jan 2018 - Jul 2023 | Johannesburg, South Africa

Director heading Africa Innovation & Growth, Deloitte

  • Held permanent executive accountability for the Innovation & Growth function across the whole of Deloitte Africa for five and a half years (Jan 2018 to Jul 2023), owning the P&L and the standing function, not a sequence of projects.
  • Met sales targets every full year; targets were 50% above peer directors.

Jan 1998 - Dec 2000 | Johannesburg, South Africa

Consultant, McKinsey & Company

  • Associate at McKinsey & Company from 1998 to 1999, regarded as the office modelling expert.
  • Contracted back as Engagement Manager for SAA work in 2000.

Jan 1986 - Dec 1997 | Durban, South Africa

General Manager, Lipton Teas, Unilever

  • Rose rapidly to become the youngest GM in Unilever Global history.
  • Ran the most profitable unit in Unilever SA, with 1,200 employees across two factory units.