Founder & CEO of Cogniate and Author of The Leadership Balance Triangle, Morné Maritz is an Organisational Psychologist and neurodivergent founder dedicated to protecting human curiosity by transforming enterprise learning from weeks of bureaucracy into hours of insight
The Courage to Start
Morné Maritz’s journey is not defined by a straight line, but by the courage to step onto the track when the finish line is nowhere in sight. Growing up in the quiet suburbs of Pretoria, South Africa, he navigated a world where his own cognitive processing was a silent hurdle. Undiagnosed dyslexia meant he had to work twice as hard as his peers just to find a sense of belonging. It was a formative struggle that taught him a lesson he carries into the boardroom today: “The reason you start is almost never the reason you keep going. But once you commit to showing up, the strategy finds you”.
This resilience—the willingness to show up without a guaranteed outcome—became the bedrock of his career. Whether it was cleaning floors in London or architecting global learning platforms for 400,000 employees at EY, Morné has consistently moved toward the friction points of human development. Today, as the Founder and CEO of Cogniate, he is not just building an AI tool; he is fighting to protect the most valuable asset of the modern age: human curiosity.
Reframing the “Different” Brain
The trajectory of Morné’s life shifted in a second-year university classroom when a professor introduced him to mind maps and memory palaces. For a student who had spent years mimicking a system that wasn’t built for him, this was a revelation. “Professor Schmidt didn’t fix me. He reframed me. Suddenly the ‘different’ way my brain processed information wasn’t a limitation—it was the whole point”. This moment sparked a lifelong fascination with organisational psychology and the mechanics of how humans actually learn.
His early career in pharmaceutical sales at Aspen Pharmacare and Servier further refined his philosophy. While others focused on the pitch, Morné focused on the partnership, treating doctors as collaborators in patient outcomes rather than mere prospects. This “serve first, sell second” approach led him to become the only representative in Servier’s history to win Territory of the Year three consecutive times. It was proof that when you lead with education and genuine value, the results follow.
Dismantling the Bureaucracy of Learning
Morné’s progression through the ranks of global giants like Salesforce and EY provided him with a front-row seat to a systemic crisis in corporate education. He saw billions of dollars funneled into training systems designed for compliance rather than capability—systems where success was measured by “checking boxes” rather than true transformation. At EY, he co-architected the Skills Foundry, a $100M+ platform designed to address the skills mismatch for a global workforce.
However, even within these high-level successes, Morné recognized a widening gap. Traditional course creation was slow, rigid, and increasingly detached from the speed of modern business. This tension culminated in his decision to leave the corporate environment to solve the problem at its root. He realized that the $200 billion corporate training industry suffered from a design failure, not an inefficiency problem.
Empowering the Human Element
With the founding of Cogniate, Morné has introduced a paradigm shift in EdTech. By leveraging AI to handle the routine “heavy lifting” of course creation—reducing timelines from 160 hours to just 90 minutes—he is freeing human experts to focus on judgment, context, and meaning. His vision has already gained significant traction, with a patent portfolio valued at $16.4M and validation from major organizations like KPMG and BDO.
Simultaneously, his upcoming book, The Leadership Balance Triangle (Routledge), explores the psychological depth of leadership in uncertain times. Endorsed by world-renowned thinkers like Marshall Goldsmith and David Clutterbuck, the work challenges traditional leadership models and advocates for a balanced, human-centered approach. Lisa Nichol, a former client, perfectly captured his impact, noting that his “diagnosis and recommendations… were incredibly accurate and insightful,” reflecting his deep commitment to growing team capability.
Vision for the Future
Morné’s vision for the future is a direct response to the encroaching shadows of the AI revolution. He warns of a world where we might “outsource our thinking” and lose the ability to discern truth from automated noise. Inspired by the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Morné views the abdication of curiosity as a primary threat to society. “The greatest risk of the AI revolution isn’t superintelligence destroying humanity. It’s a generation that outsources its curiosity and never develops the cognitive independence to question anything at all”.
Through Cogniate and his advisory roles in the startup ecosystem, Morné is building the infrastructure to prevent this outcome. He remains a founder who views his late-life diagnosis of ADHD and dyslexia not as a setback, but as the source of his unique perspective. He is proof that the most impactful leaders are often those who had to find a different way to see the world.
Editorial Note
Morné Maritz’s journey reminds us that transformation is not a corporate milestone—it is a personal commitment. Whether he was cleaning floors in London or pitching to Fortune 500 executives, his mission has remained the same: to reduce the distance between insight and learning.
