Retailers

Ailsa Wingfield is Executive Director: Intelligence for Nielsen Global Markets. She helps companies capture today and tomorrow's prospects by identifying and exploring demand generating trends through strategic foresight, knowledge and thought leadership creation. With a passion for Africa and Middle East, she established the Africa Prospects Indicator which determines overall country prospects and the sources of potential, across economic, business, consumer and retail metrics.

Alain Dos Santos is the Regional Managing Director for Montblanc Africa. Based in the luxury Maison's regional office in Johannesburg, Dos Santos is responsible for expanding Montblanc's presence & operations in key markets across the continent. His role follows 5 years as Montblanc's MD for Brazil, during which he oversaw milestones including the transfer of Montblanc from its historical family external distributor to fully integrated subsidiary within the Richemont Group, & the first Richemont Maison in Brazil to launch its e-commerce offering..

Alan Knott-Craig is a South African entrepreneur and author. He is the founder of Project Isizwe as well as executive chairman of Hero Telecoms, Ever Africa, and Happimo NPC..

Camper by day, run-and-gunner by night, Andy is editor at Memeburn and prefers his toast like his coffee -- dark and crunchy. Specialising in spotting the next big Instagram cat star, Andy also dabbles in smartphone and game reviews over on Gearburn..

Arisha Saroop's story is a wonderful one. She joined The MediaShop's Durban team as the office's media receptionist and is now calling the shots as the Business Unit Manager.

Brendan Seery has been in the news business for most of his life, covering coups, wars, famines - and some funny stories - across Africa. Brendan Seery's Orchids and Onions column ran each week in the Saturday Star in Johannesburg and the Weekend Argus in Cape Town.

In her role as MediaCom South Africa MD, Britta Reid has been responsible for the operations of the agency including executive oversight on buying..

Cecil Ungerer is the Chief Sales Officer at in-store advertising innovators Smart Media..

Christele Chokossa joined Euromonitor as a research associate in July 2016. She is currently a senior analyst and focuses on researching industries such as Travel & Tourism, Retailing, Consumer Foodservice, Digital Consumers and Consumer Finance in sub-Saharan Africa.

Craig Schwabe is a geospatial specialist at Africascope, and focuses on the use of accessibility methods in the optimizing of government services and retail outlets. Over more than 12 years he has assisted companies in the motor industry as well as the financial and retail sectors with optimizing their retail networks.

Danette Breitenbach was the editor and publisher of Advantage, the publication that served the marketing, media and advertising industry in southern Africa. Before her editorship, she was deputy-editor as well as freelancing for over a year on the publication before that.

David Jenkins is the founding partner at Mickey Llew. He has worked with well-known brands and companies across several industries including financial services, FMCG and retail, mining, IT and more where organic and paid media strategies are crafted, created, launched and managed. In his role he is responsible for managing and driving Mickey Llew's client strategy with internal and external stakeholders..

Founder of MySociaLife, SA's Premier Digital Life Skills Program in Schools. Writer, editor, and owner of long-time journalism hub, Mediaweb South Africa..

Dov Girnun is the CEO at Merchant Capital..

Eben has over 20 years retail, pharma & FMCG experience in South Africa. He understands consumer & shopper behaviour patterns, and is an expert in CE.

Emma Longden started Sitting Pretty in 2009. As she became more aware of the horrors of the clothing industry, she rebranded in 2013 to align her ranges with her own values - ethical clothing produced in a manner that is kind to the environment and the people who make the garments.

Editor: Marketing & Media; Head of Content for Entrepreneurship.

Feroz Koor is the Group Head of Sustainability at Woolworths..

MD of Master Data Management He is passionate about Information Communication Technology (ICT) and more specifically data quality, data management and data governance..

Experienced digital and marketing professional, with an interest in ecommerce, product development and customer experience. Started in the martch environment before moving into the retail environment at Zando, rising quickly into the management space first as the head of mobile and then heading up the groups marketing initiatives.

Grant Lapping is Managing Director at DataCore Media, which helps organisations to drive better results from their digital marketing investments by unlocking the full potential of campaign performance data. DataCore Media services include digital media strategy, buying and planning across all digital, social media and mobile platforms as well as the implementation and management of the technology organisations need to effectively track and optimise their campaigns..

Driving solutions from Strategy to Results. High Performance Quality Projects Striving for Excellence.

Jess is Senior Editor: Marketing & Media at Bizcommunity.com. She is also a contributing writer.

Kali Moahloli is Head of Sales and Retail at GfK South Africa..

Kirsten Dewar is the Managing Director at Platinum Seed..

Retail editor and lifestyle contributor at Bizcommunity.com. Cape Town apologist.

Lee Naik is the CEO of TransUnion Africa..

Leigh Andrews AKA the #MilkshakeQueen, is former Editor-in-Chief: Marketing & Media at Bizcommunity.com, with a passion for issues of diversity, inclusion and equality, and of course, gourmet food and drinks! She can be reached on Twitter at @Leigh_Andrews..

Leo Van De Polder is the Global Development Director at Shop! Association..

Lindie Stroebel is the General Manager for the Produce Marketing Association (PMA) in Southern Africa. The PMA is the leading trade association representing companies from every segment of the global produce and floral supply chain.

Managing Director at Green Enterprise Solutions.

Marian Salzman-known as one of the world's top five trendspotters - has a communications career that has spanned more than three decades, across multiple industries and the globe. She now heads up comms - , owned and paid - at Philip Morris International (PMI) as it embarks on its transformation to a smoke-free landscape....

Mark Schech is the executive for Africa at Innervation PAN African Payment Solutions..

Enthusiastic UCT graduate with a passion for fashion, film and words..

Marylee Townshend is currently the Learning and Development Director at IRI. Marylee has a strong track record with over 24 years of experience in both marketing research and education.

Melissa Burns is an independent journalist and business consultant. Business innovations, technology, and marketing are central topics of her articles.

Chief Growth & Innovation Offer at Smollan.

Morne Cronje is Head of Franchising at FNB..

An experienced strategist, trainer and customer experience improvement specialist, Nathalie has more than 25 years of experience in the customer service industry..

Nick Durrant is MD at Bluegrass Digital, a digital production agency. We work with marketing teams and creative agencies around the world delivering digital platforms.

Nicola Cooper is a trend researcher, analyst and cultural strategist at Nicola Cooper & Associates (NC&A), as well as in-house trend research at 99c advertising and communications agency.

Paul Cook is co-founder and Managing Director of Silvertree Holdings, which builds, invests into and operates disruptive consumer brands, including UCOOK, Faithful to Nature, PriceCheck, Pet Heaven and many more. Paul holds a PhD in theoretical physics from the California Institute of Technology. Before 2013, he worked as a consultant in McKinsey & Company's Johannesburg and London offices, focused on growth strategy in Africa and the strategic implications of global trends..

Rachel Thompson is the Insights Director at GfK South Africa. She has 16 years of experience in market research, working first for Research International and then moving to GfK South Africa in 2009.

Area Vice President, Salesforce - Emerging Markets.

Robyn Smith is the founder of South Africa's leading ethical retailer, Faithful to Nature. Passionate about showing others that businesses can still be profitable and ethical, Robyn is inspiring and advising more and more key players in the market on creating sustainable success..

Rowan Leibbrandt is a founding partner of Truman & Orange, a premium drinks company. Returning to South Africa to apply 20 years' experience in various management positions at blue chip liquor companies, Rowan has lived in Swaziland (where he was born), the UK, Russia, Germany and worked extensively in France, Germany, Portugal and Greece.

Sean Sullivan is an Associate Media Consultant at The MediaShop..

Semona Pillay is a lecturer and the Programme Coordinator for the Diploma Retail Business Management at the Department of Marketing Management at University of Johannesburg. She lectures Marketing Communications on the Bunting Road campus and Integrated Marketing Communications on the Kingsway campus.

Shereesa is a passionate writer who often delves into the world of social media, online trends and all things photography. She is also a journalism graduate of Rhodes University and can be found frequenting YouTube and Instagram.

After 18 years in media and marketing, Taryn Gill began her natural haircare venture The Perfect Hair in 2015, expanding the product line into salons, Edgars and Clicks. Today she works with beauty distributor Sunpac to further grow and scale several haircare brands into retail channels across Southern Africa..

Tyrone Van Heerden (@tyronevh) is a South African strategist at the Iris Worldwide Munich office, and is responsible for steering the quality of the strategy product across B2B and B2C client partners. Encouraging brave work, Van Heerden has been responsible for creative, commercial and transformational strategies for brands such as Allianz, Samsung, BSH, Ab InBev and Harley-Davidson.

Vera Valasis is the Executive Director at Franchise Association of South Africa (FASA)..

South African innovator, data scientist and CEO of Canadian machine learning company: Xineoh..

Yael Geffen is the CEO of Sotheby's International Realty South Africa and a member of the board. Geffen has a BA in Communications and Economics and a Master's Degree in Integrated Marketing and Communications Strategy..