WASPA Names Management Committee For 2011

Released: 29 March 2011

The Wireless Application Service Providers' Association (WASPA) has announced the names of the members of its management committee for 2011 and the portfolios and working groups they will be responsible for.

WASPA founder Leon Perlman will once again serve as the organisation's chairman. He will be joined by several colleagues who have served with him on the organisation's committee before as well as a number of new faces.

Said Perlman: "I'm excited once again to have the opportunity to serve the WASP industry as the chairman of WASPA. I will be working closely with a formidable team that includes many industry experts as we lobby for the WASP industry's interests and provide a forum for self-regulation of the industry.

"I would like to extend a warm welcome to the new committee members as well as those that return to serve the industry as they did last year. I would also like to thank all outgoing management committee members for their dedication to the industry during 2010."

The new management committee together with their areas of responsibility is as follows:

• Casper de Villiers, Clickatell's co-founder and operations director, has again taken on the responsibility of chairing the finance working group. He has more a decade of experience in the WASP environment and is Clickatell's representative at the GSM Association. De Villiers has served on the WASPA Code of Conduct Working Group in the past.
• Gavin Penkin, Exactmobile's director of Portal and Mobile Entertainment services, has been a member of the WASPA management committee for the past four years and has been active on the various committees since WASPA's inception. He will head the Networks Working Group as chairman and will also chair the Membership Working Group.
• Leon Perlman, the founder of WASPA, is taking the role of chairman as well as of chair of the Regulatory Working Group. A former scientist, he has been in the telecommunications industry since the early 1990's. WASPA's chairman since 2005, Perlman has also served on the WASPA's regulatory portfolio since the organisation was established.
• Dieter van Rooyen, currently the operations director of Integrat, one of the largest mobile VAS aggregators in South Africa, is a new addition to the management committee. He has been involved in the mobile industry since 2002 and will chair the Aggregators Working Group.
• Deon van Heerden, chief operating officer at ViaMedia, is another new member of the management committee. He is an accomplished entrepreneur and technology professional with more than 17 years of experience working with Fortune 500 companies in a number of countries.
• Paulo Do Carmo of Marketel will chair the public relations working group. His involvement in the mobile industry dates back to 2002 and he brings a wealth of relevant experience to his role.
• Russel Stromin, an industry veteran with more than 20 years of experience in the technology industry and head of Strike Media, will chair the Code of Conduct Working Group.

ENDS