Karen Parkin is co-founder and director of digital strategy and training company Britefire (www.britefire.co.za; www.bizcommunity.com/Pressoffice/Britefire www.facebook.com/britefire).

With a degree in economic science from Wits, Karen has been at the forefront of innovation through her whole career and she is at home in a world that is in a constant state of flux, uncertainty and invention.

She lived and worked abroad for 26 years before coming back to South Africa in 2006 to start Britefire with Godfrey Parkin, her husband and partner.

Karen has worked in some large and small companies in four countries on three continents, including IBM, Dow Chemical (Zurich), BBC (London), Euro RSCG and Marriott International (in Washington, DC), which allowed her the opportunity to invent the future and drive change in the these organisations. She was responsible for the computerisation of the European R&D function in Dow Chemical; the digitisation of the BBC Archives to provide access to content to programme makers across the organisation; the internationalisation of the Marriott International website; and the reorganisation and re-architecture of the Intel website.

As an entrepreneur, she has cofounded two start-up companies. Pepper's Ghost Productions in London was a digital 3D educational computer games company that was way ahead of its time. She drove the creative and operational groups, which was all about inventing everything as you went along, struggling with the limitations of technology, and about the joy of realising the unimagined.

More recently, she has cofounded Britefire in South Africa, a company that challenges the status quo and that is restless to grasp the future and bring its fresh thinking and approach to all its clients.

Contact Karen on tel +27 (0)21 790 0303, email , follow @karenoparkin on Twitter and connect on LinkedIn.