Digital Media Africa

A passionate media innovation advocate committed to the disruption of media in Africa with the goal of expanding access to information, raising social consciousness and inspiring people-led change. His work in the African media ecosystem is embodied by roles as Assistant Editor with Ripples Nigeria, Programme Director of Ripples Centre for Data and Investigative Journalism (RCDIJ), and Project Coordinator of the Google-funded, climate-focused Eco-Nai+.

Anne Marie Hammer is a programmes and project manager for the Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD), the largest international network of journalism support, media freedom, and media development organisations. An expert in media development and journalism support funding, Anne Marie is responsible for the GFMD MediaDev Fundraising Guide and Resource Centre, a sector-specific resource for small and medium-sized media development organisations, and Bottom Line, a monthly newsletter dedicated to media development funding. Before joining GFMD in 2017 she was the Program Manager and HR Manager for the The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) in Sarajevo, Bosnia.

Sarah is a Program Manager with the Google News Initiative team where she works with the applicants and recipients of the DNI Fund in Europe and the GNI Innovation Challenges globally. She is a regular speaker at conferences in the UK and overseas, broadcast interviewee and commentator on issues relating to media, digital journalism and community.

In September 2012, Nigel established 263Chat. 263Chat is a Zimbabwean online publication focused on encouraging and participating in progressive national dialogue. Together with a team of fellow journalists, they publish the news every day on www.263chat.com. Nigel holds a Bachelor of Financial Administration (Accounting) from Australia and an MBA from the Scotland, UK.

Yvette is a digital strategy professional with over 7+ years in media. She brings user research experience and a commitment to experimentation to achieve commercial outcomes.

Pontsho Pilane is a journalist, editor, media lecturer and trainer with a focus in health, race and gender and how they intersect. She’s interested in using communications as a tool for social change. Prior to that Pilane was the senior writer at Health-eNews, and was formerly a health reporter at Bhekisisa, the Mail and Guardian’s centre for health journalism. She debuted as a journalist at The Daily Vox, where she wrote primarily about gender, race and how they intersect. Pilane holds two degrees in media studies from Wits University.

Myra Abdallah leads DEI and Digital Safety for WAN-IFRA Women in News (WIN) as senior manager. She also drives WIN’s communications initiatives and media relations. She is a Lebanese journalist and gender expert with more than 12 years of experience in the intersection of media and human rights, with a focus on gender rights, diversity and inclusion, advocacy, media development and digital safety.

Abdallah sits on the executive board of the Arab Foundation for Freedoms and Equality (AFE), and on the online harassment advisory board of the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF). She works as a gender and media consultant for several international and regional organizations.

Based in Paris, France, Andrew joined WAN-IFRA in 2010, initially as Editor and Project Manager working across the organisation’s Press Freedom and Media Development portfolio. As Executive Director since 2014, he has led WAN-IFRA’s Press Freedom team with responsibility for global advocacy and delivering multi-million-Euro journalist safety and support programmes to media worldwide. Prior to this, Andrew was a journalist and editor with print and online media in the UK, Spain and France. In recent years, he has found his radio voice via the WAN-IFRA Media Freedom podcast ‘The Backstory’, the latest season of which explores the opportunities and challenges facing media across the African continent: https://wan-ifra.org/initiatives/the-back-story/

Dina is an Egyptian media entrepreneur and a bilingual journalist, who spent 14 years working for the BBC before launching her media startup, Egab (egab.co) in August 2020.

Egab empowers local journalists from the Middle East and Africa to publish in regional and international media outlets stories that challenge stereotypes and dominant narratives about their communities. Egab specialises in solutions journalism; a genre focused on reporting how people respond to problems in their communities.

Donavine Smith, WAN-IFRA’s Membership Communication & Co-ordination Manager has a mandate to craft and facilitate exceptional member experiences for Members and Partners. Her vision is to streamline and redefine engagements and communication for better value and growth in WAN-IFRA engagement and membership.

At WAN-IFRA, Donavine started at Women In News (WIN) as the Advisory Strategy and Innovation Consultant, Trainer and Coach. Her particular achievement was in Media Digital Maturity and Transformation implementation – some may be familiar with the WIN Stability Tracker, and the WIN Digital Maturity Rapid Diagnostic Tracker which she co-facilitated. In addition, Donavine also collaborated on and presented the Digital ABC course. Finally, she was the technical lead on the business process automation and data migration project – to streamline Business Intelligence and MREL Reporting to funding partners.

read more

Nokuthula Manyathi has a decade-long media career, working in digital, broadcast and print newsrooms. At News24 (South Africa’s most trusted news brand as awarded by the Reuters Institute, 2019 – 2023), she’s the multimedia editor, where she spearheaded the publication’s audio department. Work produced through the hub has won several awards, including a gold and bronze statue at the New York Festivals Radio Awards. In 2022, she was chosen by the Online News Association as one of 26 women globally leading change and innovation in journalism. As a reporter, her investigative work exposed a Christian cult masquerading as a mission station and a ring of sports coaches with predatory behaviour at elite schools in South Africa. She’s a graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and speaks German, Zulu and Afrikaans. Her proudest achievement? She’s the reigning champ of her family’s annual board games day.

Joel Malebranche is the Regional Program Manager for West & Central Africa for Internews. Joel has more than 15 years of experience working on access to information, health, humanitarian emergencies, livelihoods, social justice and research in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, with the aim of providing citizens with information adapted to their needs. Joel manages a portfolio of more than 15 media projects in eight countries that prioritizes equity across the production and leadership of media and journalism organizations and networks.

Leonie launched and managed the paid content product BILDplus for BILD (Germany’s biggest news title), and later founded and served as Managing Director of all the Pulse brands (Pulse Live, Pulse TV, Pulse Marketing Agency and Pulse Creative Content Studio) in East-Africa for Ringier. Since 2021 Leonie is consulting various clients (eg. Facebook/Meta, NMG) in Business Development, Strategy, Sales and Marketing.

Marianne is a seasoned digital advertising specialist serving as News Partner Lead for Sub-Saharan Africa & Israel at Google. Previously she was Head of Commercial Strategy for AdSpace24, the commercial team for Media24 News. Having carved a career in publishing her path led her through all aspects of packaging and monetising content starting her career in book publishing, then into magazine publishing, both in South Africa and Australia and finally she joined the Media24 digital publishing business in 2017. While there she worked in a cross functional team driving innovation in ad formats, content marketing and the publisher programmatic landscape. She lives in Johannesburg and is the mother of 2 boys.

Amanda is a Senior Programme Manager for CivicSignal.Africa and Engagement at Code for Africa. She manages CivicSignal, a new programme within Code for Africa, which maps and offers insights into media ecosystems in Africa using research and machine learning tools. She also manages the engagement department within Code for Africa to amplify awareness of the organisation’s projects, products and partners, and to foster a growing tech-for-good community.

Mfumo Bamuza is a TikTok video creator and Social Media Influencer based in Johannesburg South Africa. He creates meme and comedy content that prioritizes political and current affairs in a cleverly amusing tone. He has worked with brands such as Africa Check, African Alliance and Discovery South Africa among others.

Kwame is the Director of Content at Pulse Ghana. Based in Accra, Kwame oversees content creation from articles and infographics to video production while building communities across the various social media platforms to serve engaging content on Pulse. Kwame started his digital publishing career on the sports side but has now told stories in technology, entertainment, lifestyle and hardcore politics with election coverages while being innovative for audience engagement. 

For Kwame, it’s tech, innovation and everything creative.

Malek Khadhraoui, Tunisia, is journalist, trainer, and publication director of Inkyfada, a Tunisian magazine dedicated to investigative and long-form journalism.

He is also Executive Director of Al Khatt, a nonprofit organization which supports independent journalism and provides solutions for creating impactful journalistic content.

He is also a consultant for several national and international organizations working in the field of training and media support.

Joy Kiruki Juma is a journalist of 16 years. Joy currently works as a Copy Editor with CGTN Africa. She previously worked as a news and features editor, a news anchor and a reporter with K24 TV, Kenya.

Joy is an alumni of WIN – Women in News, and is an online safety trainer.

Yvonne Mooka is a multi-award winning Social Justice journalist from Botswana. She has been in the media for close to 15 years now.

She worked for Botswana Guardian and The Midweek Sun newspapers from 2010 until 2020 when she decided to spread her wings. Through her company Yvonne Media International, (YMI), she works with different international media such as BBC Africa Eye where she is tasked with doing Investigative works and research. YMI also does media mobilization for local and international clients.

Joan is the Echo Editor (Social Media Editor) at the Standard Group Ltd. She is passionate about using digital media to better the lives of people and businesses. Joan has worked in the digital space for nine years, working with various media houses in Kenya in digital/online and social media content development for TV, radio and print. She has been involved in content production, social media and website updates and management, digital marketing, online public relations and social media campaigns execution​.

Farouk Ali has three years of Data science experience and over five years of relevant experience in various fields of IT that range from web development and Business intelligence, Data scientist with solid experience in NLP.

Since joining WAN-IFRA in 1997, Valérie has accrued more than 20 years of experience as a media journalist. Currently, she is a team member of WAN-IFRA’s Global Advisory division where she works with the Advisory Team in leading global consulting projects. She is also the Programme Lead for WAN-IFRA’s top global conferences including: World News Media Congress and our Digital Media Event Series. She has contributed to numerous research reports, including Alternative Revenue Streams for Publishers. As part of her research, Valérie interviewed numerous publishers who had found success discovering new business models – whether its through events, e-commerce, video or marketing services – Valérie has experience taking the pulse on what generates revenue for publishers.

Laurel works with the Table Stakes Europe programme since joining WAN-IFRA in late 2019. For each cohort in the programme, she organises the five main workshop sessions, both in-person and virtual, as well as smaller group meetings between the workshops. Beyond Table Stakes Europe, she is part of the Digital Revenue Network team at WAN-IFRA, working on the Digital Media Awards and assisting with webinars and other events throughout the year.

Dean is Director of Insights and Editor-in-Chief of WAN-IFRA, he is responsible for coordinating all activities related to the organisation’s array of multimedia publications. He has more than 25 years’ experience working in the news publishing industry, much of that time spent researching, analysing, identifying and ultimately reporting about global media developments.

Nicole has worked for the Digital Revenue Network division at WAN-IFRA since April 2015. She manages the marketing and outreach for WAN-IFRA’s international Study Tours. She was on the product development team that launched the industry’s first e-learning programme on driving digital revenues: the Media Management Accelerator (MMA). In February 2021 she joined the Digital Media Africa team.