Dr. Layo Seriki

Layo Seriki is the Managing Director of CIELARKO – Coaching & Consulting. Her work as a researcher, coach and consultant concentrates on identifying what is needed to optimise the effectiveness and contentedness of people at work, especially in the African context. Since 2001 she has worked as a consultant and coach for multinationals, NGOs and individuals in Africa, Europe and North America.

After obtaining her Masters in Industrial Engineering from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany in 2000, she worked for a leading international consulting firm specialising in strategy, marketing and pricing. Here, she was able to combine her interest for people and scientific analysis and learnt and practised many consulting methods and skills.

In 2004, Layo began working as a freelance consultant and embarked on her doctoral study on “Teamwork for Innovation in Sub-Saharan Africa”. This study was completed at the Chair for Leadership and Human Resource Management of the WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management, Koblenz, Germany in March 2007. It includes several case studies carried out in large technical and service sector organisations in Nigeria as well as South Africa.

Layo moved to Cape Town in 2007, where she founded CIELARKO and began to learn about and use various coaching modalities as an addition to management consulting and training. She is a licensed TIFF Provider, Co-founder and Director of Functional Fluency International, an active member of the South African Transactional Analysis Association (SATAA) and is registered as a facilitator with the Systems Constellations Association of South Africa.