In this section: Mala Suriah, Tamra Valey and more.
Margaret Anne Ashwin
Managing Director
Media Max
Tel: + 27 11 803 9049
Magaret Ashwin has owned and managed Media Max (Pty) Ltd for the past 20 years, where she focuses on strategic media planning and placement. She has mentored 10 students in the past seven years, ensuring that they develop the highest industry skill set. Ashwin was the former media director for OMD/Eurospace in Cape Town and holds a BA from Wits. Skilled in strategy, Ashwin has worked with key organisations such as the Development Bank of South Africa, Icasa, the Open Society Foundation, the ANC and with the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism in the training of community radio stations personnel.
Gisele Wertheim Aymes
Head of Media
First National Bank
+27 11 371 2111
www.fnb.co.za
Gisele’s Wertheim Aymes 19-year media career spans the media landscape, and includes editorial, marketing, publishing and advertising sales as well as media innovation and strategy. Wertheim Aymes has launched and relaunched more than 10 magazine titles and has been responsible for several new newspaper projects; she was a member of the strategic planning team for The Times. She was named Media Personality of the Year in 1992, was the winner of the International Press Distribution Awards for best international magazine launch for Elle and has received over 30 local awards for magazine publishing excellence. Between 2003 and 2005, Wertheim Aymes was elected chairperson of the Magazine Publisher’s Association of South Africa. Over the past few years, her focus has shifted innovation and she headed up the innovation portfolio at Avusa Media, before joining First National Bank as its media director in March 2008.
Nthabiseng Dube
Vice President Group Marketing
ABB
Tel: +27 11 202 5000
www.abb.com
Nthabiseng Dube joined ABB as vice-president group marketing in July 2004, where she is responsible for the group’s corporate affairs. With more than a decade of marketing experience under her belt, Dube is currently studying towards her MBA. She has a BA in education from the University of North West and a Management Advanced Programme (MAP) certificate from Wits Business School. Her marketing career began at SABC radio in 1993 when she was appointed promotions executive for Motsweding FM; from there she moved on to become brand manager, then schedule manager for SABC1. After nine years with the public broadcaster, Dube went to Johnnic Communications, now Avusa Limited, where she served as an account director for Business Day and Financial Mail. Dube currently serves on the boards of ABB and the Swiss-South African Cooperation Initiative (SSACI).
Helen Human
CEO
Human Communications
Tel: +27 11 807 3260
www.humancommunications.co.za
Helen Human is the CEO of Human Communications, South Africa’s largest recruitment advertising agency. Human founded the company in 1987, becoming the first woman to head an advertising agency of this kind. Today, the Human Group provides full-service recruitment and selection that includes advertised recruitment, media buying, employer branding and permanent and contract recruitment and bulk response handling through their Human Communications, Human Touch, Human Brand, humanjobs.co.za and Human Response divisions.
Anastacia Martin
Publisher
Mail & Guardian
Tel: +27 11 250 7300
www.mg.co.za
Anastacia Martin is the publisher and managing director of the Mail & Guardian. She started her career at Independent Newspapers before moving on to Avusa, first as general manager sales and trade marketing at the Sunday Times and then as deputy publisher of the Sowetan and Sunday World. She spent a year at Primedia, but returned to the print industry, this time as the first woman to hold a managing director’s position at M&G Media Ltd. Martin studied post-graduate management at both Wits Business School and Henley University. Her strategic appreciation of the needs of the needs of the quality readers of the M&G is being used to reengineer the newspaper in the minds of advertisers.
Angela Makholwa
Managing Director
Britespark Communications
Tel: +27 11 315 0092
www.britespark.co.za
Angela Makholwa heads up Britespark Communications, which she established in 2002. Today, Britespark clients include the Department of Trade and Industry, The World Bank, the Gauteng Shared Services Centre, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, the Gauteng Department of Economic Development, the Businesswomen’s Association, South African Policing Union, Unisa School of Business Leadership, the Department of Science and Technology and the Airports Company South Africa. In addition to running her company, Makholwa released her first novel Red Ink in June 2007, with her second book, Thirtieth Candle due for release in June 2009. Makholwa holds a BA in journalism and industrial psychology from Rhodes University.
Ayanda Mbanga
Managing Director
Ayanda Mbanga Communications (Pty) Limited
Tel: +27 11 234 6041
www.ayandambanga.co.za
Ayanda Mbaanga is founder and managing director of the award-winning recruitment advertising agency Ayanda Mbanga Communications. The company specialises in building employer brands in the eye of prospective candidates, increasing the chances of attracting the best skills. A journalism graduate from Rhodes University, Mbanga gained practical experience and hands-on knowledge writing recruitment advertising copy for Saatchi & Saatchi for five years before establishing her company in 1998 with just four employees. Today the company employs more than 30 people, with agencies in Johannesburg, Durban, Cape Town and East London. Mbanga was a finalist in the 2008 Nedbank Business Woman of the Year competition.
Nina Morris
Owner
Morris Jones & Company
Tel: +27 11 486 1284
www.morrisjones.co.za
Nina Morris, born in Helsinki and schooled in Johannesburg, headed back to Finland after school to study graphic design at the HeIsinki Academy of Advertising. She worked in one of the leading design and advertising agencies in Finland before returning to South Africa, where she quickly rose within the advertising industry to leading positions at Ogilvy and then Leo Burnett. In January 2001 she co-founded M&C Saatchi South Africa, with top creative Angel Jones. Less than 18 months later, the pair bought out the Saatchi brothers and formed the award-winning agency morrisjones&co. “Allvertising” has been a key strategic aspect of the agency, as well as its South Africanness which has resulted in involvement in the success of such brands as kulula.com and household names such as Wimpy and Virgin Mobile.
Boniswa Pezisa
Group Executive Director
Network BBDO
+27 11 912 0000
www.networkbbdo.com
Group executive director of Network BBDO Boniswa Pezisa started her career in advertising in 1986 with Paton Tupper and Associates as an account executive, moving to Hunt Lascaris in 1992 where she helped transform Edgars from a small budget account to one of the largest accounts in the agency. In 1994 she went to Nedcor as the marketing communications manager, joining Network BBDO two years later. Pezisa has a diploma from the Institute of Marketing Management and a certificate in Management Advancement Programme (MAP) from The Wits Business School. She is currently completing her MBA. Pezisa is deputy chair of the Association for Communication & Advertising and a member of the Advertising Standards Authority of SA. She sits on the advisory boards of the Loeries Awards, Common Purpose SA, the South African International Ballet Competition and the Dreamfields Project.
Shenanda Janse van Rensburg
Executive Head of Corporate Communications
Cell C
Tel: +27 11 324 4000
www cellc.co.za
Since 2007 Shenanda Janse van Rensburg has handled Cell C’s internal and external communications, media and public relations, corporate social investment, corporate reputation management and stakeholder engagement. She holds a BCom from the University of Johannesburg and subsequently studied strategic leadership, public relations management, international relations, branding, social investment, sponsorship, lobbying, strategic planning and employee relations. In 1999 Janse van Rensburg was a public relations account executive with Harrison Cowley (London) where she worked with clients such as the Royal Bank of Scotland, Whitbread, the British government’s Y2K taskforce and the Camelot Group Plc. In 2001 she established and managed the public relations department for country’s first lottery operator Uthingo Management.
Manuela (Manola) Sanchez Aragú
Director of Marketing and Communication
Wits Business School
Tel: +27 11 717 3627
www.wits.ac.za
In the marketing filed for more than 20 years, Manuela (Manola) Sanchez Aragú is a strategic marketer based in Gauteng. Her career has been focused in the tertiary industry, within the management development and leadership discipline, but she has experience in the diplomatic field as well as the travel industry. Prior to joining Wits in January of 2009, she was the director of marketing, business development and communication at the Unisa Business School. Her real passion in the business environment is leadership and leading people through building relationships and recognising differences. She holds an MBA from Unisa and delivers talks centred on women empowerment as well as brand/marketing strategies
Marang Setshwaelo
CEO
Dreamcatcher
+ 27 11 234 8650
Marang Setshwaelo is the co-founder and CEO of Dreamcatcher, a Johannesburg-based publicity, production, event and conference coordination company. Since 2002 Dreamcatcher has coordinated projects such as Johannesburg’s Africa Day celebrations and Arts Alive, the Nelson Mandela Foundation’s 46664 Johannesburg concert, as well as the Africa Cup of Nations opening ceremony and the South African Music Awards. Setshwaelo worked as an editorial assistant in the New York publishing house Simon & Schuster and, before establishing Dreamcatcher in South Africa, she was a freelance publicist and scriptwriter. Setshwaelo studied at the Waterford Kamhlaba United World College in Swaziland and Smith College in Massachusetts, where she graduated with a double major in women’s studies and political science.
Mala Suriah
Head of Consumer Marketing
Neotel
Tel: +27 11 585 0000
www.neotel.co.za
Mala Suriah has fulfilled many key strategic marketing roles within diverse industries over the past 17 years. Coupled with her MBA in strategic marketing, she has established herself as an expert in her field and now heads up consumer marketing for the nation’s second network operator, Neotel. Suriah has focused on branding because she believes this is the key sustainable differentiator for organisations and their products. Using the principles of company/product branding, Mala believes that successful brand management is not just limited to products and corporations alone. She believes that the true power of success resides in one’s ability to unleash the greatest brand above all — the “I” brand, a personal marketing philosophy that she says can unlock an individual’s “brand identity” to leverage for success.
Tamra Veley
Managing Director
Corporate Image (Pty) Ltd
Tel: +27 21 426 1233
www.corporateimage.co.za
Tamra Veley started her career with the South African Media Council during its inaugural session in November 1983, later working at Shell South Africa before leaving to form Cape Town-based Corporate Image — a public affairs and reputation management company — 22 years ago. With a staff of 20, Veley focuses on public affairs, corporate reputation, crisis management, issues management and financial PR. The group serves some of South Africa’s largest blue chips and three global clients, which have a combined market capitalisation of more than R900-billion. Apart from a number of local awards, Veley won the International Award for the best campaign in the world in 2004 and the International Award for the best research-based PR campaign, also in 2004. Locally qualified, she has also completed a course in strategic leadership at the University of Oxford.