Speakers

Chair, Opening Address, Plenary Sessions, Panel Host, Panelists, Workshop Facilitators

Chair 

Neil Hutchinson (B.Bus.Sc) has spent most of his career in corporate marketing. He spent 6 years working in various marketing roles within the Rembrandt Group. He left his role as Marketing Manager at Stellenbosch Farmers Winery to join the multi-national Guinness Group as Marketing Director of their spirits company, United Distillers.

He was responsible for the marketing strategy of their leading international brands and oversaw the growth of Bell's to the no.1 position in South Africa and was largely responsible for successfully launching and developing Johnnie Walker in the new emerging market segments in South Africa. He also set up and commercialized the first Internet site for trading and delivering liquor in South Africa.

In 1996 he became General Manager of United Distillers SA growing the business and generating turnover in excess of R540m by 1998. In 1999 Neil left the Guinness Group and joined Dimension Data as an executive member of the Dimension Data i-Commerce division where he focused on the convergence of technology and business.

Two years later Neil co-founded Grapevine Interactive, serving as Managing Director of the Grapevine Interactive Marketing (GVIM) business that specifically focuses on delivering digital campaigns across electronic and mobile channels. In 2007 Grapevine was rated by the Naspers Group as the top Mobile Marketing services provider in SA.

Over the last 3 years Neil has introduced new thinking into the new media environment such as Consumer Digital Intelligence rating and Virtual Instant Prize incentive models that have been used by brands to improve the ROI on their campaigns.

Neil is also the Vice-Chairman of WASPA the wireless application service provider’s industry watch-dog.
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Opening Address 

Brian Mdluli is the CEO of the DMA of South Africa. His appointment comes with tremendous challenges of rebuilding the DMA after the dissolution of the MFSA in 2005.

His objective is to work alongside the board of committed and professional DM opinion leaders to deliver a true mouth piece for the direct marketing industry.

With international sales and marketing experience, Brian also holds strong views on corporate governance and the transformation of the economy. He has extensive experience in business development and sales growth working from the ground up.

Between 2000 and 2004, Brian visited 51 out of the 52 African countries to establish and develop business contacts throughout the continent, ranging from private sector through to government contacts. During the same period, he co-headed a sales team that increased the Harvey Roofing Products’ sales by 45% year on year. At the time of his resignation in 2004, Brian headed the Harvey Roofing Products sales department with an annual turnover of R36 million. He then joined Afro Cool, an industrial air conditioning company where he grew turnover by 900% over an 18-month period. By 2004, Afro Cool grew from 1 client to 91 clients with four new major centres established in South Africa. In addition to this he initiated and grew the Afro Cool Africa export market.

During his career Brian has worked at Nedcor, Multi-Waste, Harvey Roofing Products and Afro Cool before his appointment as CEO of the Direct Marketing Association of SA in 2006.

Brian remains a non-executive director of both Multi-Waste and Afro Cool.
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Key Note Speaker 

Mark Slade has a unique knowledge of all areas of the mobile advertising value chain from working within advertising agencies, mobile operators and mobile content/rights owners, spanning 15 years of experience working in interactive advertising and new media. His breadth of experience gives him the rounded knowledge needed to build the market on behalf of 4th Screen Advertising, a global premium mobile advertising agency which offers brands and advertisers engagement, through innovative rich media ad formats delivered via their proprietary ad serving platform Mpression.

On October 201, 4th Screed Advertising and Grapevine Interactive partnered to launch AdVine, a Premium Mobile Advertising Agency providing a single point of purchase for media agencies and brands in South Africa wishing to buy advertising inventory across a number of Africa's most visited mobile & internet sites.
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Speakers 

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Brian Richardson (BCom, MBA) is a Founding Director and CEO of WIZZIT, a recently launched bank  aimed at the un and under banked segment of the population.

WIZZIT was launched in November 2004 and in providing affordable banking to the mass market was the first to launch as part of its offering, cell phone banking that works across all the networks and all phones and SIM cards. WIZZIT solves not only an accessibility and affordability issue but from a convenience point of view offers 24/7 real time transactions and hence is “Your Bank in Your Pocket.” WIZZIT is recognized as the global pioneer in mobile banking.

Brian is listed in Who’s Who of South African Business as well as the International Biography of Distinguished Leaders. He is an Ashoka Fellow – a global network of social entrepreneurs.

He has lectured and presented at seminars and conferences throughout the world and was recently invited by the Clinton Global Initiative to present the WIZZIT model as a means to “Bank a Billion”.

In South Africa, WIZZIT operates as a division of the South African Bank of Athens limited but we have launched mobile Banking in Zambia, Tanzania, Rwanda and Romania with other countries in the process of being finalised.

Brian is married to an equally entrepreneurial wife and has 2 daughters and twin boys.

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Mike Carter (previously Senior Media strategist at Mxit) brings over 10 years of specialist mobile experience assisting brands in the adoption of mobile as a serious business and media channel. Mike heads up Trigger/Isobar’s Mobile Business Unit which is focused on providing clients with turnkey mobile strategy, development and integration services.

Trigger was founded Trigger in 1999 and rapidly grew into a focused digital direct marketing agency for clients including BMW, The First Rand Group, Nike and Japan Tobacco International. Between 2002 and 2007 Trigger expanded its market share and offering to become a full service digital marketing agency and was acquired by the Aegis/Isobar group in 2007. With mobile being a key driver, in 2011 Trigger/Isobar appointed key business unit leaders to drive its vertical skill sets comprising Digital Media, Mobile, Search and Direct to further entrench its full service proposition.
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Llew Claasen is the Vice President – Online Marketing & Products at Clickatell.com, a mobile network aggregator covering over 750 mobile networks in more than 220 countries. He’s responsible for the strategic direction of Clickatell’s Online business, as well as the company’s overall Online Marketing, Online sales channel and the key Mobile Marketer customer segment, amongst others.

Before Clickatell, Llew was CEO and co-Founder of KeyJam.net, a boutique web business consultancy, as well as co-Founder and Head of Online Marketing at incuBeta.com (now Clicks2Customers.com), at the time, a leading online marketing agency on 3 continents.

Llew is a member of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council Advisory Board for Africa, which includes CMOs from some of the largest and most influential companies in South Africa.

Russel Stromin is Head Honcho of Strike Media, South Africa’s premier full service mobile marketing  and technology company. With roots in the cellular industry since 1996, Strike Media provides mobile marketing, mobile technology, bulk messaging, consulting and mobile content services. 

Strike Media was officially registered as a Wireless Application Service Provider (WASP) with Cell C, MTN and Vodacom in 2003 and is a founder member of WASPA, the industry regulator. Russel serves as chairman of the WASPA membership working group and a member of the WASPA management committee. 

Russel is a 25 year IT veteran, pioneering cutting edge corporate communication technologies in South Africa, the natural progression of which has led to mobile communication as technologies converge. Russel assists corporates and organizations capitalize on the latest mobile marketing techniques and technologies to streamline internal processes, improve efficiencies and cut costs, communicate with and engage customers to drive sales and attract new sales leads.  _____________________________________________________________________________

Tim Legg is a digital entrepreneur. His mission is to help customers identify opportunities to grow their business. His area of expertise is the mobile channel and his playground, the mobisphere. 

Born in the UK, Tim’s experience in the world of IT and digital communication spans two decades. Having founded and built up a pan-European digital consultancy with over 150 staff and offices in the UK, France and Germany, Tim engineered the successful sale of the organization to a UK-listed company and headed for sunnier climes in SA in 2003.

Here his reputation as a focused and goals-oriented businessman earned him the appointment as South African MD of Opera Interactive, a global mobile messaging and media company (today known as Oxygen8, and ranked amongst the top 5 WASPs in SA). In 2009, Tim decided to spread his wings again and co-founded MobiMedia, one of SA’s first dedicated full service mobile marketing and media agencies.

He views the mobile phone as potentially the most significant communications channel between advertiser and consumer and considers it the key platform for brand-building and developing interactive relationships now and in the future. He likes red wine, The Economist and making an impact. _____________________________________________________________________________

Raymond Buckle currently serves as Co-Chairman of the Mobile Marketing Association South Africa. In 2010 his company worked with the SA Government to provide the first unified mobile communications platform serving all Government Departments in the promotion of their content and initiatives around the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup. This initiative was awarded the MMA Global and EMEA Award for best of mobile in cross media integration. 
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Nicholas Marini is a young, dynamic and vibrant marketer. Literally brought up on Direct Marketing in a family business that is based on 30 years of industry experience, Nick heads up the marketing division of Computer Facilities, a founding member of the Direct Marketing Association of South Africa.

This led him to master traditional Direct Markeing as well as its natural progression to embrace Social Media and Mobile Marketing. Nick firmly believes in the importance of an integrated approach to creating an effective marketing strategies.

Nick was actively involved in the Consumer Protection Act committee with the Direct Marketing Association of South Africa, which strives to ensure that the Consumer Protection Act will still allow marketers to maintain a good level of business whilst being fair and just to consumers.
Nick has a passion for his job, sports and life and helps to ensure peoples’ success in their business through accurate and response generating marketing.
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Kali Ilunga is an entrepreneur, speaker and writer who loves figuring out ways to genuinely touch people’s lives using new media. He currently leads the team at EXP Digi – a LIVE + Digital Agency and remains joint CEO at Spoken Ink Publishing – a company voted number 34 on “SA’s FAST GROWTH 100 Companies” by the All World Network. 

The mobile campaigns Kali had the privilege to create have attracted over 1, 5 million downloads from a youth audience. He loved speaking on “Reaching 13 – 30 year olds through mobile and online,” “Digital Africa” and “Entrepreneurship” at several conferences in SA, Nigeria, Ghana, USA and Kenya. 

Kali received a Harvard University Fellowship in 2010 and aims to be continuously learning.

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Panel Host

Toby Shapshak is editor of Stuff magazine and a columnist for The Times newspaper.

He was named in GQ's top 30 men in media and the M&G's 300 influential young South Africans list in 2009; and was the ICT Journalist of the Year in 2002.

He has been the Mail & Guardian's technology and sports editor, ran the M&G website when it was the first news site in Africa, shadowed Nelson Mandela when he was president, and covered the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Formerly a senior newspaper reporter covering everything from crime to politics, he has been writing about technology, the internet and the impact it has on our lives for more than 10 years ago for a number of newspapers and magazines, including the Sunday Times, Business Day, Mail & Guardian, ThisDay, The Financial Mail and The Weekender. 

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Panelists 

Mark Slade has a unique knowledge of all areas of the mobile advertising value chain from working within advertising agencies, mobile operators and mobile content/rights owners, spanning 15 years of experience working in interactive advertising and new media. His breadth of experience gives him the rounded knowledge needed to build the market on behalf of 4th Screen Advertising, a global premium mobile advertising agency which offers brands and advertisers engagement, through innovative rich media ad formats delivered via their proprietary ad serving platform Mpression. 
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Thecla Mbongue is a senior research analyst within Informa Telecoms & Media's Industry Research division and is a key contributor to Informa's World Cellular Information Service, World Broadband Information Service and Intelligence Centre.
In her role, Thecla is responsible for researching the telecoms industry in sub-Saharan Africa.

Thecla also manages World Cellular Data Metrics, in which Informa tracks mobile data usage and up-take, including SMS and MMS traffic volumes, mobile data/broadband subscriber information, MMSC contract awards, mobile data deployments and non-voice services.

A native French speaker, Thecla is a regular speaker and moderator at international conferences in Africa and is regularly quoted in the regional and global business press.
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Tim Bishop originally studied Architecture at Liverpool University (UK), but moved swiftly into the dynamic traditional advertising industry. In 1995 Bishop started his first web and marketing company, 'Dejavu promotions', which enabled early adopters to acquire a website and domain name for 99 GB Pounds.

Prezence (UK) was born in 1999 after Tim experienced first hand the rapid expansion of online media. Prezence (UK) rapidly became a leading new media agency primarily servicing the music industry. The company collaborated on digital properties for first class bands, including the likes of Oasis, Daniel Bedingfield, Westlife, Annie Lennox, Foo Fighters and Linkin Park. With heavy emphasis on the then very new 'viral marketing' and database building, the Prezence UK team were credited with many of the worlds firsts in online Viral techniques, as well as pioneering interactive sms systems that are still used by some of the biggest brands around the world.

Prezence South Africa was launched in 2002 and was instrumental in changing the face of new media, digital innovation, as well as online and mobile development for leading brands in this country.

As a leader in User-Experience design and flow, Tim has been behind some of the largest mass market online and mobile deployments, including SterKinekor and Computicket. The agency also consults to leading advertising agencies and clients. With 15 years online and 9 years mobile development experience, Tim together with a passionate and highly trained team, leads the field in mobile translation architecture, empowering brands with first rate digital properties.
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Sam Beckbessinger is obsessed with the Internet and starts twitching if she's offline for more than a few minutes. She's a strategist at Quirk Jozi, where she advises clients like DStv, Liberty and Sun International.

Sam cut her teeth working as a Communications Consultant for brands like Hewlett-Packard, Vodacom, Cathay Pacific Airways and McDonald's, with a focus on crisis planning, digital communications and public relations. She;s also an avid writer, gadget girl and Linux fan.

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Ronen Aires worked at Investec Asset Management as a key account manager and product specialist before co-founding Student Village. After three successful years at Investec, he decided to pursue his passion for media and marketing and started Student Village in 2001.
 
As CEO Ronen has remained focused on pursuing excellence, which is why Student Village is a leading youth marketing and career development solutions provider. His energy and enthusiasm has seen him leading the company through various exciting growth phases. He is a passionate leader who enjoys inspiring his team. A strategic thinker and chronic doer, Ronen constantly drives himself and the team to new levels of performance in a work environment that encourages innovation, and ensures everyone has fun in the process.
 
Ronen holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Wits and Honors in Business Management from Unisa.
 
In 2006, Ronen was recognized as the ‘Most Promising Entrepreneur’ by the South African chapter of the global Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) – a worldwide entrepreneurs’ network.
 
In 2008 Ronen was nominated for the same award. He is now serving his third year as a member of the EO Board.
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Workshop Facilitators 

Sean Pashley (B.Com) joined the magazine industry on the commercial side and, after a 5 year stint, migrated into the world of newspapers where he joined the behemoth that is the Sunday Times. As  Client Service Manager, he dealt with some of the country’s most recognized brands and garnered a deeper appreciation of their perspectives on media and how they perceived its integration into the marketing mix. 

After a decade in the print environment, Sean started a non-traditional media agency where he represented a suite of ‘alternative’ media options. He’d package these channels into media  solutions dependent on client’s objectives.

One of these media options, Starfish Mobile, was particularly intriguing as it sought to create traction in the nascent mobile marketing arena. It didn’t take long for the proverbial light bulb to go on as one cottoned on to the possibilities. Sean joined Starfish Mobile permanently in May of 2005 as a Sales & Marketing Manager and was subsequently promoted to Managing Director of the South African operations in early 2006. In late 2007, Sean was brought in as Chief Commercial Officer for international operations.
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Phumelela Dhlomo was appointed as South African Tourism Regional Director for the Africa unit in August 2008.

Born and bred in KwaZulu-Natal, Dhlomo started his career at Alexander Forbes as a junior consultant. He moved up the ranks and by the time he left, he was a Communication Manager of his division.

Before joining South African Tourism, Dhlomo was General Manager of Sales and Marketing at the South African National Parks, where he spent two and a half years.

As Regional Director of the Africa market, Dhlomo heads up a unit whose destination marketing efforts are focused on Nigeria, Kenya, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, SADC and most importantly the Domestic market. He fills an important position at South African Tourism as these markets are significant contributors to the total volume and value that the tourism industry contributes to the national economy. He is has recently added the Middle East to his already impressive portfolio.

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Walter Pike (BCom, MBL) is a right brained marketing maven.

After a period as head of faculty: marketing and advertising, 2010 saw him launching two new businesses. PiKE | The new marketing agency and the Digital Academy. The former to make sense of brands in an always on, always connected world, the latter to train the people who would operate in this world.

His background is in leading advertising agencies, marketing, academia and consulting.
Never shy to speak his mind you can hear him on his weekly segment on Radio, as a conference and professional speaker, follow him on twitter and read his blog, PiKE’s Thinking…
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Megan Firth has extensive Business Development experience at Corporate and SME level. She travelled nationally to experience the business landscape and mindset across all of South Africa’s provinces and intends to establish businesses networks in every province in her current position as Digital Change Agent for the SABC.  
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Alexander Gregori is a visionary, entrepreneur and mobile marketing specialist. He worked in Germany and South Africa, building and managing companies in such diverse industries as eventing, television- and radio production, real estate, public relations, marketing and communications and the music industry.

A BA graduate of the University of Cape Town, Alexander ventured into mobile marketing by launching MOBmix in 2007, a mobile channel that offered pay per download content. In 2008 he co-founded Dawn Anna Investments (Pty) Ltd., for which he serves as a Board member and CEO. The company has a subsidiary in South Africa and specializes in mobile marketing and m-commerce solutions for the African market.

As Mobile Marketing Winner$™ Team Leader Alexander is an internationally published author and speaker on mobile marketing, co-founder of the Thinking Mobile™ Confex Series and co-author of the Mobile Marketing Wnner$ handbook "Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Mobile Marketing But Didn't Know Who To Ask".
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