Paula Fray has worked in media for more than three decades as a journalist, editor, trainer and media manager. Paula was the first female editor of the Saturday Star newspaper in South Africa. She is currently the managing director of the pan-African media training organisation frayintermedia, which she founded in 2005. The organisation has trained journalists, media leaders, civil society organisations, government officials and corporate leaders during its decade-long existence.

She is a trustee of Media Monitoring Africa and IRIN independent news agency. She is a Print and Digital Media SA fellow and a public representative on the Press Council of South Africa.

Paula graduated with a BJourn degree from Rhodes University and has a Woman and Law Certificate from UNISA. A recipient of the prestigious Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University, she is a former member of the Nieman Foundation Advisory Board at Harvard.

Serene got her first taste of journalism as a 10-year-old, creating a newsletter for her class in school, typing out stories on a typewriter in the teachers’ common room. Today, she is still creating and directing content for young people,  in her role as Schools Editor of The Straits Times in Singapore.

One of her most treasured experiences of journalism was being the Singapore representative of the Asia Journalism Fellowship (2011), which brings seasoned journalists from all over Asia to learn more from one another over three months. It gave her renewed perspective on journalism, and made her firm friends with other journalists particularly from Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Pakistan.

Serene has been a journalist for 14 years, of which the last 10 years have been working on The Straits Times’ News In Education programme. She was deputy editor for several years before becoming editor in 2016.

Toyosi Ogunseye is the Head of West Africa at the British Broadcasting Corporation. She manages the operations and five language services of the BBC in Francophone Africa and Anglophone West Africa. An international presenter, she hosts the BBC World Service’s international debate programme, World Questions.

Ogunseye, who is presently the Vice President of the World Editors Forum and sits on the board of the World Association of News Publishers has over 15 years’ experience as an investigative journalist. She was the first female editor in the 41-year history of Punch Newspaper; Nigeria’s most widely read newspaper and has won over 40 local and international awards. 

Dean is Director of Insights and Editor-in-Chief of WAN-IFRA, he is responsible for coordinating all activities related to the organisation's array of multimedia publications. He has more than 25 years’ experience working in the news publishing industry, much of that time spent researching, analysing, identifying and ultimately reporting about global media developments.