Barbara Cooke was the general manager of research and marketing at National Magazines, the magazine division of the Nasionale Pers Publishing Group (now Media24) for over 13 years. She was also the director of research and planning at J. Walter Thompson following nearly 20 years at Unilever.
Cooke has also has been widely published and is a member of a variety of professional bodies – she has served on the boards of the Print Media Association of South Africa (PMASA), the Magazine and Publishers Association of South Africa (MPASA)and the South African Advertising Research Foundation (SAARF), of which she was vice-chairman. After successfully launching and establishing TGI in South
Africa, Barbara has now retired from the company and started her own consultancy once again. Barbara served on the Council of the Technikon Witwatersrand until its amalgamation with Rand Afrikaans University(RAU) to form the new University of Johannesburg (UJ), and continues to be an active
participant in the marketing, media and research community in South Africa