People behind Creative Learning Systems

Barbara Prashnig, M.A.

Creative Learning was founded by Barbara Prashnig, Emeritus Professor, MA (English and Educational Sciences).

Barbara was a teacher and trainer for 17 years in Austria; is certified by the University of Houston, Texas, in accelerated learning and teaching methods, studied Suggestopedia with Dr. Georgi Lozanov from Bulgaria and was trained in Learning Styles and Individualised Instruction at St. John's University, New York. Barbara taught Linguistics at Auckland University in New Zealand for five years, before founding Creative Learning Co in 1992.

Through her books and seminars, Barbara Prashnig has introduced her pioneering concept of learning and working styles into schools, businesses and organisations around the world: from Sweden to China, from Great Britain to Chile and South Africa. She lives partly in New Zealand and Austria.

Visit Barbara's Blog

Yvonne Walus, PhD

Originally from Poland, Yvonne grew up in South Africa. She is responsible for supporting our international distributors and communicating with our clients on and off-line. She has been involved with Creative Learning since 1997 as programmer, business analyst and software expert. Her contributions to product development, support and software distribution have been invaluable for the constant expansion of CLS. As mother of two pre-schoolers, Yvonne is passionate about education. Her mission is to help parents with any learning-related challenges their children may be facing.

Mikhail Diatchenko, BSc Comp

Originally from Russia, Mikhail is Creative Learning’s Senior Developer, Application Architect and Web Master. He has been with the company since 1998 and almost single-handedly put CLS on the World Wide Web. If there are any glitches in our instruments or on our web site, he is the one who together with back-up programmers can repair anything. He is responsible for the technical side of our product development and gives programming support to our international distributors.

Jim Johnston

A New Zealander with many years overseas experience, Jim is our advisor on Corporate Strategic Planning, Marketing and Finance. He brings a wealth of international general management experience and associated skills to our business and has a keen interest in our software as enhancer for personal and professional development.

Sharon D'Penha

Originally from India, Sharon is our Customer Support Officer and has been with Creative Learning since July 2005. Her voice is the one you will most likely hear when you phone us. In addition, Sharon manages the office administration and training logistics. She is very dedicated to helping customers with web-related queries via phone and e-mail, particularly first-time users. As a mother of a three-year old [check age of Sharon’s daughter] she is particularly interested in child development and how learning styles can help parents.

Shirley McCorquindale

Shirley is responsible for our accounting department and has kept our finances up-to-date for the past two years. She has a great love for details and corresponds with customers personally when payments of invoices are delayed.

David Congerton

Originally from England (though very much a distant memory now), David is the company's Web Engineer and second fiddle to Mikhail. He has been associated with Creative Learning since its transition to the Internet in 2000, providing technical support and direction. In addition to these tasks he is responsible for the co-ordination and propgramming of the translation aspects of our assessment instruments and the planned multi-lingual website. Due to his special training, David brings invaluable knowledge about latest developments in Internet technology and website development.

Dr. Helmut Jasch

Living and working in Austria, Dr. Jasch is our European consulting partner and responsible for representing CLS internationally to corporate organisations. He has a masters degree in Business Administration and doctorate in economics from the University of Vienna and spent more than 30 years with IBM Europe in Vienna, Paris and London. During his long career he was a member of the IBM Austria Management Board, later in senior executive positions for IBM Europe, the Middle East & Africa; held several executive positions in the IBM Europe Business Partner Organization, mainly as Marketing Executive in charge of implementing and running PartnerWorld, the unified marketing, enablement and education initiative for more then 40.000 Partners across all brands and business partner types. With his extensive international experience, Helmut is bringing new skills to our diverse team, advising us in distribution, sales and web marketing strategies.

Werner Jambor

Resident in Vienna, bookseller by trade but now active publicist and writer in culture, science and education. From 1981 to 2000 Werner was a freelancer for Austrian state television "ORF“ and mainly responsible for science and education topics. Since 1995 he has been an independent film-producer and among his works are image videos for the Max-Planck-Institute, Fraunhofer Institute, First Data Systems, Nationalbank Austria, A1, Telekom Austria, Lenzing AG, Ernst & Young, and Unisys. Since 2000 he has also been doing PR-work for companies and institutions. In this capacity he is the latest addition to our virtual team and responsible for promoting Barbara Prashnig's work in Europe and internationally. With his excellent media connections he is helping us to put a small NZ company on the world map!