Casper de Villiers

Company: Clickatell

• Codecom - 2008
• Finance WG - 2010-2011
• Treasurer - 2010-2011

Casper de Villiers is currently the Senior Director of Supplier Connectivity at Clickatell. He completed his MBA at the University of Stellenbosch in 2010.

After completing his studies in Retail Business Management at the Cape University of Technology in 1994, Casper focused on skills development among youths and in the corporate sector. With charisma as natural impetus, the following five years provided Casper with a strong foundation for entrepreneurship and leadership.

In 2000 Casper became a co-founder of Clickatell, a global mobile messaging entity pioneering corporate short message services (SMS) within the online realm. Casper was initially responsible for all financial and operations duties, but soon moved to core operations management and was also responsible for the formation and coordination of a world class support centre.

Previously involved with WASPA's CodeCom working group, Casper became a Finance working group chair and management committee member in 2009. Casper was re-elected as Finance working group chair and was appointed as WASPA deputy-chair and treasurer in 2010. His official WASPA duties will focus on clarifying/defining financial processes and maintaining sound financial protocol. His personal goals are to improve on the finance-related communication to all WASPA members and to maintain a high standard of financial controls.

Janene Matsukis

Company: Smartcall Technology Solutions

• Lobbying WG co-chair, PR WG co-chair - 2012

Janene has 15 years experience in the mobile industry (initially with Cointel and then Smartcall Technology Solutions) covering all aspects of the business ranging from aggregation, content delivery, billing, and all bearers of delivery without exception.

Janene has been involved with developing one of the original WASPs (Cointel) into a power house of a business. During this time her understanding of the industries requirements as well as the needs of the consumer allowed her to set trends as to where the industry should focus to ensure success in the mobile telecoms environment.

With billions of billing tickets processed under her management, Janene is a trend setter for requirements in the past, present and her recommendations, suggestions and influence would be invaluable asset in the future. Understanding all aspects of the requirements and has an unlimited wealth of knowledge at her disposal to ensure this ingredient is available.

Building, concluding and sustaining relationships locally and internationally Janene has ensured that all partners dealing with her have been able to place a large amount of trust in her and decisions she makes, knowing that their business is in safe hands.

Leon Perlman

Company: Cellular Online

• WASPA Chairman 2004 - 2011
• Regulatory portfolio 2005 - 2011

Leon Perlman is the founder and is the founding and current Chairman of WASPA.

A former scientist, he has been in the telecommunications industry since the early 1990's.

He holds the degrees BSc, BSc (Hons), MSc, BProc, LLB, and is currently completing a Doctorate of Laws (LLD) at the University of South Africa.

A sought-after international speaker, he has chaired and spoken at many international mobile, legal and telecommunications conferences worldwide for over 10 years.

He has lectured and taught technology convergence and technology law at Columbia University Business School in New York, the University of Cape Town, and the University of Toronto. He has headed the telecoms law division at Michalson's, a boutique ICT law firm based in Cape Town and Johannesburg.

Published widely, he contributes to respected international telecommunications journals on various technology-related matters. He wrote the m-commerce chapter in the book, "The Hitchhikers Guide to Going Wireless" published in October 2005.

Gavin Penkin

Company: Exactmobile

• Royalty Working Group Chair 2005 - 2008
• NetCom Working Group Chair 2007 / Networks WG Chair 2008 - 2011
• Membership WG - 2011
• Lobbying WG co-chair, PR WG co-chair - 2012

Gavin has worked in the Mobile Services Industry for the past 8 years. Gavin has been a member of the WASPA Mancom for the past 2 years and has been active on the various committees since WASPA's inception.

Gavin has played a prominent role in lobbying for the enforcement of misleading and illegal services as these will contribute to a demise of the industry. Gavin also believes that WASPA as a leading industry body is making great strides in ensuring that Mobile Services can continue into the future.

Russel Stromin

Company: Strike Media

• Membership WG 2010
• Codecom, Code WG - 2011

Russel has more than 20 years experience in the technology industry, mostly as a self-employed entrepreneur. His first business was purchased in 1998 by a large listed IT organisation and incorporated as a whole as the Internet division of the company. Russel was employed by the purchaser in a number of executive roles, finally as Group Technical Strategist.

• Proven management and leadership qualities.
• Capable of managing large teams.
• Adept in developing and implementing innovative IT strategies.
• Skillful at conceptualising technology and information services and solutions
• Background in all areas of computing, networking, software, application development, process design, security and hardware.
• Highly experienced public speaker with good communication skills.
• A highly self-motivated individual who works effectively independently or as part of a team.
• A great communicator, at ease interacting in the boardroom and on the technical development floor.

Deon van Heerden

Company: Viamedia

• Joined Mancom 2011

Deon is an accomplished Entrepreneur, IT & Telecoms Professional and Management Consultant with more than 17 years experience working with Fortune 500 companies in a number of countries. The first part of Deon's career was spent as an IT Manager and Management Consultant working for Sanlam, Accenture (both in South Africa and the United Kingdom) and a niche strategy consulting firm in London. During this time, Deon also briefly worked as an Equity Analyst for one of the largest Asset Managers in South Africa in their Technology, Media and Telecoms Team.

Deon's involvement in the Mobile VAS industry started in 2000 when he was involve in the start-up of Clickatell. He joined Clickatell on a permanent basis in 2005 and was responsible for establishing the Clickatell UK local presence. During his time with Clickatell in London, Deon was intimately involved with PhonePayPlus and PayForIt as a registered member. Deon later returned to South Africa to take up the Country Manager role and progressed to Executive Vice President - World-wide Sales & Operations before he resigned in 2010.

Deon is currently the Chief Operating Officer for Viamedia (Pty) Limited.

Dieter van Rooyen

Company: Integrat (Pty) Ltd

• Aggregators Committee - 2011

Dieter van Rooyen currently the operations director of one of the largest mobile VAS aggregators in South Africa, has extensive operational management experience in the mobile VAS industry.

Dieter's involvement with the mobile industry started in 2002, while at the time specialising in the convergence of Broadcast, IT and Mobile technologies.

He pioneered the first totally integrated and converged "interactive distance learning" platform. Amongst others, a mobile WIG platform was used to measure learning efficiencies for both synchronous and asynchronous learning delivery programs.

Thereafter, Dieter made a deliberate shift to the mobile VAS industry, joining Integrat as General Manager in 2005. Since then he has been focusing on aligning structure with strategy, and building a world class operation. The current operation supports the expanding international structure, providing a cost effective centralised operational support backbone for territories throughout Africa and others.

Although he does not specialise in business development, Dieter has assisted numerous customers in designing and implementing specialised solutions to service their specific needs, ranging across a multitude of industry sectors such as mobile entertainment and blue chip corporates.