The Media Online’s weekly round up of people, account and business moves in media.
This week’s BIG move: FAIRLADY magazine launches top-notch online business start-up course
To recognise the achievements of women entrepreneurs, FAIRLADY and Santam launched the Santam Women of the Future Awards in 2014. Over the past seven years the number of entries has more than tripled and the awards have expanded to include sister brand, TRUE LOVE. Our experience has shown that South Africa needs this course.
To help empower more people to launch their own businesses, the FAIRLADY Smart Women website is launching its first online masterclass – squarely aimed at entrepreneurs. 7 Steps to Your Start-Up is designed to fully equip and enable you to turn your idea into a profitable business – or take your existing side hustle to the next level.
7 Steps to Your Start-Up will give you all the tools and skills you need, at a fraction of the cost of other business programmes. Designed for FAIRLADY by well-known South African entrepreneurs Dawn Nathan-Jones and Lesley Waterkeyn, 7 Steps to Your Start-Up is based on their powerful Over the Rainbow programme, a high-impact online course for start-ups and businesses. They’ve been there – they know exactly where you’re at and what you need to get you where you need to go and have trained more than 5 000 entrepreneurs with Over the Rainbow, and we are thrilled that they have developed this course for us.
“FAIRLADY has always supported entrepreneurs in South Africa,” said FAIRLADY editor Suzy Brokensha, ‘so over the years we’ve covered many stories about starting your own business. 7 Steps to Your Start-Up is by far the most comprehensive and informative guide to creating your own start-up that I’ve ever seen in all those years: not only does it give you all the information you need, it also changes the way you look at what you’re trying to do, and why. I was going to say 7 Steps to Your Start-Up is a complete game-changer, but I actually think it’s a life-changer. If you have any interest at all in starting your own business, this is the best thing you will ever do.”
People moves
Introducing SAB’s new CEO, Richard Rivett-Carnac
The South African Breweries (SAB) has appointed Richard Rivett-Carnac to the position of CEO for SAB.
Rivett-Carnac has 13 years of experience in various roles within the AB InBev group. He joined SABMiller in the London office as part of the mergers and acquisitions team in 2009 and more recently was the VP for Finance, Legal & Corporate Affairs for AB InBev’s Africa Zone, successfully navigating the business through what could be considered the most challenging years since its inception.
Having already assumed his responsibilities, Rivett-Carnac says he is committed to work with Government, suppliers and all stakeholders to responsibly grow the beer category and SAB’s share of the category.
“After the last few years, we have learned just how strong SAB can be, as an organisation and as a collection of hard-working, passionate and talented people,” said Rivett-Carnac. “Having grown up in South Africa this business has been an integral part of my life and I couldn’t be prouder to lead the team into an exciting new future for SAB and the South African economy.”
Holding a Bachelor of Business Science degree from the University of Cape Town, he is also a member of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants. As a beer man, Rivett-Carnac says, “I have worked my entire career to get to this point. This is a profound responsibility and I will ensure that our people, our industry, our communities and our country remain my top priority as we move into what I believe will be SAB’s greatest decade.”
RAPT Creative appoints group executive creative director
Anticipating an exceptionally busy year with its strong portfolio of brands, as well as embracing a more aggressive new business strategy this year than last, RAPT Creative has appointed Sanché van Rensburg as group executive creative director.
Van Rensburg, who leaves Avatar where, as ECD, she directed all creative and digital operations across the agency’s three offices, will assume similar responsibilities for RAPT Creative’s homes from Johannesburg, where she will be based.
RAPT Creative managing director, Garreth van Vuuren, is delighted to add another strong female to the agency’s leadership team. “A graduate of both the National School of the Arts and the AAA School of Advertising, and the founder of a clothing brand, Sanché has proven over and over again that her artistic brain is just as agile and adept at solving business problems,” he said.
A multiple award-winning creative across a wide spectrum of disciplines including advertising, design, art direction and fashion, van Rensburg has been part of the creative teams at Avatar, Grid, Mr Price Apparel, McCann, The Jupiter Drawing Room, TBWA\HUNT\LASCARIS and MetropolitanRepublic among others locally and Hirshorn Zuckerman Design Group in New York and the Reflex Group in Paris internationally.
Samantha Presbury joins Ogilvy PR as new MD
Ogilvy PR has appointed experienced marketing and communications professional Samantha Presbury as its new managing director.
Presbury joins Ogilvy as the new National MD, responsible for both the Cape Town and Johannesburg PR offices. She comes to the company from MSL, where she was MD for six years, after holding a senior leadership position at Magna Carta.
Presbury has long been recognised for her skills in integrated communication strategy, and reputation management and team leadership, which will enhance Ogilvy PR’s ability deliver impactful outcomes that support client business objectives.
During her time at MSL Johannesburg, Presbury helped grow the agency’s already distinguished client base with top local and global brands in financial services, legal, airlines, construction, auditing and FMCG.
Presbury assumed her new position earlier this month. She was previously head of strategy and business development at Magna Carta (TBWA) for 10 years and advised blue-ribbon clients in the auditing, energy, pharmaceuticals and financial sectors. She also ran global PR for IT solutions group Dimension Data, for five years.
Ogilvy South Africa CEO Pete Case comments, “We are very proud to welcome Samantha aboard and are confident she will help us make a real difference for our clients and for our business. She brings impressive industry experience, passion and proven ability to the agency. She will be heading up a talented team, with clients in some of the most valuable and most innovative sectors of the South African economy.”
Shannon Delaporte Joins Mark1 as managing director
Mark1, the digital marketing division of the DUKE Group, has recently added to its heavyweight staff complement with the appointment of Shannon Delaporte as managing director.
No stranger to the industry, Delaporte most recently held the position of managing director at FoxP2, an agency that she helped grow into the successful business it is today. With 20 years’ experience (including two years abroad at G2 in London) she has honed her skills at the likes of TBWA Hunt Lascaris, JWT Cape Town.
Delaporte joins at a time when Mark1 and the DUKE group are enjoying extraordinary growth, with a number of exciting new client gains and additional businesses being launched within the group in recent months.
Antoinette Basson appointed executive manager, finance at V&A Waterfront
The V&A Waterfront has appointed Antoinette Basson as executive manager, finance.
She has over 26 years’ experience, 17 of which have been in the financial services industry. She joined Old Mutual Bank from PwC in London in 2000 and then went on to become a member of the Old Mutual South Africa Central Finance team, where she served as the group regulatory accountant. In June 2008 she joined Old Mutual Property as financial manager before being appointed to the position of financial director at SA Corporate Real Estate Fund. Antionette started in her new role on 10 January 2022.
“We’re pleased to have been able to bring Antoinette on board to join us. Her depth of knowledge and experience will enhance our executive team who are focused on implementing our shared value strategy and building back our position as the premier tourist destination and leading retail, commercial, residential, and marine space on the African continent”, said David Green, chief executive of the V&A Waterfront.
Business moves
MultiChoice and 4Racing launch brand new 24-hour horseracing channel
MultiChoice and 4Racing have launched an exciting new world of broadcast entertainment for the horseracing industry, with the launch of Racing 240 on DStv Channel 240 this week.
The brand new 24-hour channel will exclusively bring MultiChoice viewers the glitz, glamour, entertainment, speed, adrenaline and drama of the big ticket South African race days such as the Cape Town MET presented by World Sports Betting, the L’Ormarins Queens Plate, Derby Day, Charity Mile and the World Sports Betting Summer Cup.
Racing 240 will also feature top international race days from global racing hotspots such as Dubai, United Kingdom, United States, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Singapore, Turkey, France, Sweden, Kenya and Zimbabwe. Major global racing events which will be broadcast on Racing 240 include the Dubai World Cup, Kentucky Derby, The Grand National, Epsom Derby, Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, Melbourne Cup, Hong Kong Vase and Royal Ascot.
“The sport of racing is loved by many South Africans. Now they can watch the best racing and social events live on DStv thanks to the launch of this new racing channel. We pride ourselves on bringing our subscribers the best of local and international content and the addition of a new racing channel will bring glitz, glamour and hours of entertainment for equestrian lovers. It is just another way we are improving our value offering for our subscribers,” said Gideon Khobane, group executive of general entertainment at MultiChoice.
Coca-Cola Launches JAMII: its New Sustainability Platform in Africa
Coca-Cola Africa Operating Unit and its bottling partners announced the launch of JAMII, the new Africa-focused sustainability platform. The platform houses the Company’s existing and new sustainability initiatives. Through this signature platform, Coca-Cola hopes to attract like-minded partners to help accelerate on-the-ground impact of its initiatives.
The new platform will build and expand on the past accomplishments in three areas; water stewardship, the economic empowerment of women and youth and waste management. This will be delivered together with bottling partners, system employees, and several NGO partners.
“We recognise the responsibility we have as market leaders to make a meaningful difference – to empower and protect the communities and the environment in which we operate. Whether it is giving people access to safe drinking water, creating economic opportunities for people in dire need of it, or reducing the impact of our operations on the environment- we are committed to making that difference,” said Bruno Pietracci, Africa President at The Coca-Cola Company.
Patricia Obozuwa, AOU VP for public affairs, communications and sustainability, added; “We chose the name JAMII, a Swahili word that means Community, Society, People – because it represents who we are as Africans and aligns with our values as an organisation- our resilience, our commitment, and our spirit of community. Consolidating our sustainability efforts under this umbrella will allow us to strengthen our value proposition and make good on our promise to continue to be a trusted partner for sustainable growth in Africa.”
Telecoms off to promising start following number portability finalisation
South Africa’s telecoms sector is off to a promising start in 2022 with the finalisation by the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) of the number portability framework and the provision of a firm commencement date.
This is according to South Africa’s Independent Service Providers’ Association (ISPA), which has for a decade and a half been calling for the full implementation of number portability. That call was finally heard and ICASA on 15 December 2021 published the relevant Number Portability Regulations in the Government Gazette.
Most importantly, ICASA proclaimed that the Number Portability Regulations will come into force on 07 March 2022. From this date local businesses, NGOs and call centres can change to a different service provider without having to change their 0800, 0860 or 087 number.
Further good news is the fact that ICASA also finalised the technical details of how number portability will actually work in its amendments to the Ordering System Specification.
Prior to ICASA’s December 2021 announcement the issue around number portability was that while one million geographic numbers and eight million mobile numbers had been ported in SA, it remained impossible to port non-geographic numbers used by local businesses, non-profit organisations and consumers for toll-free, shared-cost, premium rate and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services (i.e. numbers starting with 0800, 0860, 0861, 0862 and 087).
Symphony Technology Group announces the launch of extended detection and response Provider, Trellix
Symphony Technology Group (STG) has announced the launch of Trellix, a new business delivering extended detection and response (XDR) to organisations with a focus on accelerating technology innovation through machine learning and automation.
Trellix emerges from the previously announced merger of McAfee Enterprise and FireEye in October 2021. “We are incredibly excited to have Trellix in the STG portfolio,” said William Chisholm, managing partner, STG. “Customers can expect Trellix’s living security platform to deliver bold innovation across the XDR market.”
The new name evokes the structure of a trellis, a strong and safe framework used to support structured growth of climbing plants and trees. Trellix will deliver its brand promise to build resilient and confident organisations through living security—security technology that learns and adapts to protect operations from the most advanced threat actors.
“As today’s organisations push to achieve digital transformation, a strong security foundation is required to ensure continued innovation, growth and resiliency,” said Bryan Palma, chief executive officer, Trellix. “Trellix’s XDR platform protects our customers as we bring security to life with automation, machine learning, extensible architecture, and threat intelligence.”
Trellix’s XDR ecosystem is designed to accelerate the effectiveness of security operations by providing customers with the capability to ingest over 600 native and open security technologies. By providing security analysts with better insight, granting more control, and delivering comprehensive threat context, analysts can save time and act decisively to remediate threats.
STG is expected to launch the McAfee Enterprise Secure Service Edge (SSE) portfolio as a separate business later this quarter, inclusive of Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB), Secure Web Gateway (SWG) and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA).
Bestmed appoints Tribeca Public Relations as its communication partner
Bestmed Medical Scheme (Bestmed), South Africa’s largest self-administered medical scheme and fourth largest open medical scheme, has appointed Tribeca Public Relations (Tribeca) as its PR agency after a competitive pitch process.
Tribeca will support Bestmed in communicating more effectively with existing and potential members, with an emphasis on simplicity and clarity, helping them understand their rights and responsibilities as medical scheme members.
“Quality healthcare is not affordable for most of our population, however, medical schemes continue to work at developing affordable options to make quality healthcare accessible to more people. We are excited to be able to communicate Bestmed’s intention to provide quality, affordable healthcare cover to many more South Africans,” says Nicola Tarr, business unit director at Tribeca PR.
OOH Capital extends global reach with three new partners
OOH Capital, the global out of home advisory company and consultancy, has extended its global reach with the arrival of three new partners, covering Asia, the United States and Benelux.
The new partners are Jim Liu, formerly Zenith Media head of OOH in China and later instrumental in setting up Group M’s Kinetic China, Sheldon Silverman, gounder of Liquid Marketing and CEO of the SmartBomb Media Group in the US, and Fred Kuhlman, a founding partner of Nationaal Adviesbureau Buitenreclame in the Netherlands.
OOH Capital advises OOH businesses, cities, real estate owners and technology suppliers on the best ways to navigate the rapidly changing OOH landscape. It operates globally and services also include specialist advice on mergers and acquisitions, OOH digitisation strategy and implementation for governments, local authorities, and cities.
Additionally, OOH Capital advises brand owners and technology companies on the best ways to increase their revenues from OOH, now accounting for around seven per cent of the $600 billion worldwide advertising market.
Since its launch last March, the consultancy has advised financial institutions considering investing in OOH, in the US, a major European City on how to restructure their commercial relationships with OOH media owners to the benefit of all stakeholders and has just been handed its first assignment from an Asia based client, with international ambitions.
