Trading Places
BBDO SA has promoted ad agency Net#work BBDO’s MD, Boniswa Pezisa, to group CEO, and current deputy MD Gau Narayanan will assume the role of MD of Net#work BBDO.
BBDO SA executive chairman Keith Shipley said Pezisa had been with the agency for almost 21 years.
“It’s been under her leadership that Net#work has enjoyed its recent success,” said Shipley. He said Narayanan’s promotion heralded a new era. “We’re incredibly fortunate to have someone of Gau’s calibre.”
OWEN Kessel Leo Burnett has appointed George Chen senior strategist at the agency.
“We are excited about this appointment, which is a decisive step forward in growing the agency, and we are confident in George’s abilities to support the creative team. George is a new-age strategist who works well from the brand strategy to the generation of insights,” said agency CEO Felix Kessel.
Chen, who is originally from Taiwan, brings more than 10 years of experience in the creative industry and holds an advanced diploma in marketing and advertising. He also has a social sciences degree from the University of Cape Town.
KHOMOTSO Phihlela is to become Transnet’s group executive for research and development to spearhead and monetise the company’s drive for intellectual property.
In a first for Transnet, he will amalgamate and commercialise all of the parastatal’s research efforts in the marine, rail, ports, pipeline, manufacturing and engineering sections of its business.
Phihlela, an engineer and lecturer in operations at postgraduate level, was CEO of the Transnet National Ports Authority.
He will be based at Transnet’s innovation hub in Pretoria, a partnership with the CSIR.
THE Human Sciences Research Council has appointed Edmore Marinda as a research director at the research use and impact assessment unit. He will head monitoring and evaluation.
Marinda holds a PhD in biostatistics from the University of the Witwatersrand. Before joining the HSRC, Marinda was a technical director and adviser for consulting organisation Health Info-Matrix.
“He [has] keen research interests in social science research and public policy — a rare combination well suited to the assessment of the outcomes approach,” said Temba Masilela, executive director of the unit.