2020 Speakers | Digital Media Africa 2020
Digital Media Africa 2020
Digital Media Africa 2020 will host leading minds in the digital media space for a two-day discussion on trends and best-practice.
Chief Membership Officer, Malaysiakini, Malaysia
A graduate in English Literature from the University Malaya, Lynn D'Cruz started her career lecturing in English for 10 years. After which, she left and joined the media.
In 2014, she spearheaded Malaysiakini’s first crowdfunding campaign. The Buy a Brick campaign raised RM 1.7 million towards financing Malaysiakini’s first self-owned premise @Kini, in Petaling Jaya. She also led the interior design of @Kini which promotes a productive and engaging working environment.
She implemented Malaysiakini’s internship programme, which is aimed at helping the younger generation understand the importance of independent media.
She has a Masters in Managerial Psychology and is a 2019 Google News Initiative Newsroom Leadership Programme Fellow. She joined Malaysiakini in 2011 and today heads its Membership Development department.
Her policy in life is quite simple “It’s not a job, it’s life.”
ICFJ Knight Fellow
Catherine Gicheru is an International Center for Journalists Fellow. Gicheru is a veteran journalist with two of the leading media organizations in the region. She was the first woman bureau chief and the first female news editor of the Nation Media Group in the region. She is also the founding editor of the daily newspaper, the Star.
She co-founded PesaCheck, East Africa’s budget and public finance fact-checking and verification initiative. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Reuters' Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University, was a member of the advisory board of the Open Society Foundation’s Fiscal Governance Program which seeks to promote openness, accountability, and equity in fiscal and economic systems around the world. She was an advisory member of the State of Technology in Global Newsrooms survey conducted by the ICFJ which looked at how media professionals are adopting and adapting to digital technologies.
Gicheru is a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, a Reuters Institute Journalism fellow at Oxford University, and a 1992 IWMF Courage in Journalism award winner.
Deputy Head of Digital, The Times & Sunday Times, UK
Executive Director World Editors Forum, WAN-IFRA, UK
Cherilyn Ireton heads up the World Editors Forum, the global network for editors within WAN-IFRA. She is a seasoned newspaper professional, having spent more than 20 years on South African newspapers, as journalist and editorial manger on the country's leading titles, the Sunday Times and Business Day. She rose to be Chief Operating Officer of BDFM Publishers, the business media joint venture between Pearson, owners of the Financial Times, and Times Media in South Africa which published Business Day newspaper, the Financial Mail magazine and Summit TV. She relocated to the UK in 2005 and owned an ran a London-based media consultancy, Presslinks, which advised a variety of international organizations and foreign governments.
Co-founder of Volume, South Africa
Publisher and CEO, Daily Maverick, South Africa
Executive Editor, The Daily Nation, Nation Media Group, Kenya
Executive Editor, Daily Nation, Zambia
Journalist and media lecturer, South Africa
Pontsho Pilane is a journalist, editor, media lecturer and trainer with a focus in health, race and gender and how they intersect. She’s interested in using communications as a tool for social change. Prior to that Pilane was the senior writer at Health-eNews, and was formerly a health reporter at Bhekisisa, the Mail and Guardian’s centre for health journalism. She debuted as a journalist at The Daily Vox, where she wrote primarily about gender, race and how they intersect. Pilane holds two degrees in media studies from Wits University.
Executive Producer of Podcasts, The Children's Radio Foundation, South Africa
Founder, 263Chat, Zimbabwe
Senior Strategy Consultant, Kenya
Director, Google Nigeria
Sr. Research Associate, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, UK
Nic Newman is Research Associate at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism where he writes on the future of digital media. He is lead author of the Digital News Report the world's biggest and most authoritative survey of changing news consumption and was joint author of a recent report on the Future of Online Video.
Nic was a founding member of the BBC News Website, leading international coverage as World Editor (1997-2001). As Head of Product Development and then Future Media Controller for BBC News (2001-10), he helped introduce innovations such as blogs, podcasting and on-demand video. He works on digital, product and engagement strategies for a wide range of media companies across Europe.
Co-founder and CEO, Stears, Nigeria
Editor in Chief, Vision Group, Uganda
Barbara joined the New Vision in 1992 as a sub-editor trainee and rose through the ranks to Deputy Features Editor and then Features Editor, a position she held for ten years. In 2006, she was appointed deputy Editor-in-Chief and in April 2010, she was promoted to Editor-in-Chief. Barbara’s current responsibilities include overseeing the editorial strategy and journalistic standards of the Vision media platforms. Vision Group owns nine newspapers, six radio stations, three TV stations, a set of magazines and websites.
She heads the editorial team that provides leadership in all managerial aspects: strategic planning, content generation and editing, product marketing, staff development, audience interaction and external relations.
Barbara holds a Masters Degree in Journalism and Media studies from Rhodes University, South Africa and a post-graduate Diploma in Practical Journalism from the Thompson Foundation, Cardiff, United Kingdom. Before she became a journalist, Barbara was a high school teacher. To this effect, she holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Education from Makerere University and a Masters Degree in Education from Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda.
Barbara was an international Journalism Exchange fellow in 2007 with the International Centre for Journalists and American Society of Newspaper Editors.
Her speciality is development journalism and she has coached and groomed many journalists in Uganda towards this. In 2012, Barbara received the National Jubilee Award in recognition of her contribution to the media in Uganda.
Together with the team at Vision they have evolved a unique brand of journalism that has grown from simply telling stories to media products that foster development by offering role model practices in farming, education, health, entrepreneurship, environment etc. These projects started off as newspaper stories but they have since developed into big media projects and events throughout the country.
Founder of explain.co.za, South Africa
Verashni Pillay is a South African journalist who is passionate about digital and the future of journalism. She is the founder of explain.co.za, a WhatsApp driven portal aimed at making the news more accessible to neglected audiences. She was previously the Head of Digital at talk radio station, POWER 98.7, editor-in-chief of the Mail & Guardian and inaugural editor-in-chief of HuffPost South Africa. Under her helm, all site's traffic consistently grew, as did the M&G print circulation – despite a depressed climate. She cut her teeth in digital journalism with Media24 for several years before joining the M&G digital team in 2009 as a reporter. She has also worked as a media consultant and trainer in various newsrooms, specialising in digital journalism, social media and convergence. Verashni is a recipient of the CNN African Journalism Award, several Standard Bank Sikuvile Awards and an Open Society Foundation journalism fellowship. She was awarded a Mandela Washington Fellowship in 2018 and is a council member of the South African National Editors Forum.
Editor-in-chief, News24, Johannesburg, South Africa
Adriaan Basson is editor-in-chief of News24, South Africa’s largest website with an average monthly audience of 8 million people across mobile, app and desktop. An experienced investigative journalist and author, Basson leads a team of journalists, content producers and video journalists who lead coverage of news, business, sports and entertainment in South Africa.
Head of Digital Media, Arena Holdings, South Africa
Riaan Wolmarans is Head of Digital for the media division of Arena Holdings (formerly Tiso Blackstar Group), the publisher of the Sunday Times, TimesLIVE, Sowetan, SowetanLIVE, Business Day, BusinessLIVE and Sunday World, among other titles. He previously worked for the Mail & Guardian, the Financial Times in London and MetropolitanRepublic, the Johannesburg-based advertising agency, and has experience in both print and digital publishing.
Founder and Executive Director of Quote This Woman+ (QW+), South Africa
Kathy Magrobi is the founder and executive director of Quote This Woman+, (QW+) a non-profit company working in the media and intersectional gender space to lobby newsrooms, news producers, and journalists to amplify voices traditionally marginalised in the news.
QW+ curates a database of close to 300 woman+ thought-leaders, change-agents, activists, and experts (in fields starting at agriculture, moving through fields like economics, health, and science all the way to xenophobia) that media professionals can access when looking for people to interview, appear in panels or on forums. They also lobby against news reporting that uses gender, race, or other stereotypes; actively engaging with newsrooms in these cases.
Kathy’s background is as a media and communications strategist working in the development sector.
Chief Operating Officer, Visual Point Creative Group, Zimbabwe
Vincent Kahiya is Zimbabwean-based vastly experienced Communications Practitioner with over twenty-five years of practice covering Reporting, Editing, Public Relations and Public Information Management. He is an International Trainer in Journalism, Change Management, Media Strategy, Social Media Policy & Governance, and Digital Media Project Development. He holds qualifications in Journalism and Communications, Public Relations, Public Information Management and Business Leadership.
Vincent was Editor of the Zimbabwe Independent (theindependent.co.zw) for six years (2004-2010) before becoming Founding Editor of NewsDay (newsday.co.zw) in 2010. Between 2015 and 2017, he led publishing company Alpha Media Holdings as Managing Director before joining Oxgn PR as Managing Consultant and currently he is the COO of Corporate Communications firm VPCG (vpcg.co.zw). In this role, he advises on Corporate Communications Strategy and Reputation Management to local and international organisations.
Vincent T Kahiya is a Steering Committee Member under WAN-IFRA Women-In-News programme and Lead Trainer in WIN-Advisory.
Director, Digital Strategy, Pulse Nigeria
Senior Program Manager - Data Academy, Code For Africa, South Africa
Director of Analytics and Revenue Optimization for News and Publishing at Google, U.S
Director of Analytics and Revenue Optimization for News and Publishing at Google, U.S
Publishing Consultant FT Strategies, WAN-IFRA Supervisory Board Member London, UK
Lisa MacLeod was Head of Digital at Tiso Blackstar Group, South Africa’s largest English-language publisher, and owner of 8 newspapers, 15 websites, music, film and radio businesses across the continent. Her role was to lead digital strategy and innovation, and manage Tiso Blackstar’s online properties with 6-million unique browsers monthly on titles such as TimesLIVE, SowetanLIVE and BusinessLIVE, as well as implement sustainable digital monetisation streams.
Lisa was previously General Manager of Digital for Media24’s 24.com in Cape Town, and prior to that spent 12 years in London at the Financial Times, helping to drive their print to digital integration. She served as Head of Operations for FT.com, widely thought to be the most successful paid website in the media industry, and FT Managing Editor, overseeing staffing, strategic planning and budgets for the FT globally
From 2018-2020, Lisa served as the Vice-President of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers and is currently a member of the Supervisory Board. She has been on the board of the World Editors Forum (WEF) for many years, and has taught and spoken at numerous international conferences and training events for WAN-IFRA , WEF and Women in News.
Exec Director, Digital Revenue Network, WAN-IFRA
Nick runs WAN-IFRA's most advanced digital revenue programmes, including the Table Stakes Europe programme and the subscription focused eRev initiative, as well as managing our events and operations in Europe & Africa.
He started his career in London and has over fifteen years experience in innovative digital projects and collaborative working.
Before joining WAN-IFRA, he managed IT projects for ExxonMobil, Deutsche Bank and the European Patent Office, and facilitated the exec forums and conferences for the e-gov agency London Connects. He has a Diploma in Creativity, Innovation & Change from the Open University Business School.