Past Speakers
Eliana Cline
CEO and Co-Founder:
Conversion copywriter
Our host and moderator for this webinar is local copywriting genius, Eliana Cline.
Eliana Cline is a part maths geek, part word-worshipper. She graduated cum Laude from the University of the Witwatersrand in Mathematics and now uses her obsession with data, love affair with words + intrigue with psychology to write impactful copy. As a conversion copywriter, she writes web + email copy using scientific methods, behavioural psychology + engaging writing to help businesses get more quality leads, increase their sales and stand out in the market.
Nikki Elbaz
Email Copywriting Specialist and Strategist:
Copyhackers Agency + Nikki*Elbaz
Nikki Elbaz is among the world’s foremost conversion copywriters and email specialists behind emails for 8-figure brands like Shopify Plus, Prezi, and Sprout Social. She serves as Head of Email for The Lab by Copyhackers and also consults with brands looking to increase their email ROI. She’s an expert in using research to understand why customers buy (and in writing emails that make them do just that).
Nikki had dreams of becoming a copywriter ever since she was 8 years old. She fell in love with a marketing campaign from Heinz called “Talking Labels” (featuring quotes and witticisms on every ketchup bottle) and spent every childhood grocery trip pulling down every bottle (and annoying every manager).
Estie Rand
Consultant, Coach and Founder
Consultant & Coach,
Founder of Strand-Consulting
Estie Rand is a world renowned customer conversion expert who has built a huge business with zero dollars in ad-spend - in under two years. This, with a fully virtual team (and while raising five kids!).
The founder and owner of Strand Consulting, an LA based boutique consultancy, this marketing maven guides business owners ranging from freelancers to multi-millionaires on how to earn more money with less headache. After a decade in non-profit, rising in the ranks to become CIO, Estie left her job to bring her skills of doing more with less to small business owners around the world. She is now on a mission to empower everyone who has a business dream to professionalize it and make it profitable.
Estie is an award-winning business consultant and marketing strategist who helps small business owners earn more money with less headache. She is also the host of the acclaimed Business Breakthrough Podcast, a featured contributor to Entrepreneur.com and founder/ co-host of the annual LinkedIn Influencer Summit.
Justin Drennan
CEO and Co-founder
Parcelninja
Parcelninja is a cloud-based warehousing and delivery service geared towards South African ecommerce businesses.
Justin also co-founded WantItAll.co.za. WantItAll.co.za is an online shop based in Johannesburg, South Africa that sells over 14 million products. He has consulted with a variety of the largest e-commerce players in SA, and is widely regarded as one of the most knowledgeable individuals in e-commerce.
Justin was selected as one of the 200 young South Africans to take to lunch by the Mail & Guardian in 2009, has won the EO Entrepreneur of the year award in 2010, is a mentor at the Brandson School of entrepreneurship, and is involved in a variety of social responsibility initiatives.
Warrick Kernes
CEO
The Insaka eCommerce Academy & Board Member at The eCommerce Forum of Africa
A Serial entrepreneur with 12 years eCommerce experience in South Africa and Europe. Winner of London’s 2009 Young Businessman of the Year Award. Founder of the SA award winning online store Action Gear (founded 2010, exited 2018). Guest lecturer on eCommerce at WITS Business School to MBA students. Warrick is an author for Entrepreneur Magazine and in 2018 he published his book on South African eCommerce. Warrick is a board member of the eCommerce Forum of Africa.
In 2017 Warrick founded the Insaka eCommerce Academy and is dedicated to growing SA’s eCommerce industry. In 2020 Warrick launched his podcast eCommerce Explained to reach.
Kimberly Du Toit
UX Lead
Netflorist
Kimberley du Toit is the UX Lead at NetFlorist, a trailblazer in South African online retail.
After having risen through the ranks in the design industry, Kimberley has found her niche in
researching, designing, and testing interface solutions in a data-driven business environment.
Kimberley has a Master’s degree in visual communication, and uses her expertise to produce high quality deliverables towards a positive online experience.
Ensuring that your website has good UX will help generate return on investment; reduce
friction and drop-offs in the user journey; and turn your users into loyal customers.
Willem Haarhoff
CEO and Co-Founder:
DoughGetters Group at DoughGetters Accounting
Willem qualified as a Chartered Accountant and completed 20 rewarding years at one of the Big 4 Accounting firms. During this time, supported by his valuable team of approximately 100 accounting professionals, he gained invaluable experience and knowledge about how to develop, drive and execute business strategies - to numerous subsidiaries of large listed multinational companies.
Willem co-founded DoughGetters Accounting™ and together with his partner seeks to play a leading role in shaping the future of accounting in South Africa and the rest of the world. In March 2020 DoughGetters Accounting™ was awarded Emerging Firm of the Year by Xero South Africa.
Celeste Summerton
Owner
The Business Boutique
Always curious, Summerton is at the cutting edge of accounting and business, on and offline platform development and solutions. With many untold successes and steady hand, Celeste has a career path that has garnered her a great reputation within the accounting arena, for businesses both large and small.
Effortlessly moving across industries, her accounting prowess has provided much success for her partners; her ‘sage’ advice in this ever-fluid environment that entrepreneurs and all business execs find themselves in, achieves not only relevance but competitive advantage.
Always curious, Celeste is at the cutting edge of accounting and business, on and offline platform development and solutions.
Peter Magner:
Peter is an avid trail runner and sports enthusiast. He has a passion for people and technology and uses these skills to help grow Iridium Business Solutions.
He currently heads up the Sales and Marketing for the company, whilst also managing a team of Cloud Accountants. In 2019, he was fortunate enough to be selected as one of the SAICA Top 35-under-35.
Director
Iridium Business Solutions
Simon Magner
Simon is a Chartered Accountant with a degree in Business Science. He is passionate about using tech to help businesses streamline processes, build efficiencies and grow their profits.
Through Iridium, Simon helps businesses gain insights into their financial health to a level that ensures they make the correct strategic decisions.
Working with his brother, Peter, they bring different perspectives that provide their clients with carefully considered, creative and professional solutions.
Managing Director and Founder
Iridium Business Solutions
Dan Elkabir
Dan is the founder and CEO of Pixel Village - a full-service multi-specialist ad agency. He has consulted to leading brands, including Aston Martin, Cadbury, Coricraft, Nestle, Standard Bank and Telkom. He has helped establish companies enhance their digital presence and advised new brands on how to develop a memorable & compelling image in a cluttered space.
Dan’s advisory work across a wide array of sectors has provided him with deep experience in everything from reconfiguring the e-commerce website for retail giants to mastering the minutiae of marketing budgets.
Founder & Owner
Pixel Village
Mark Preston
For the past 20 years, Mark has founded and self-grown three agencies with zero investment providing consultancy services, personally trained hundreds of professional marketers and has spoken on a few stages around the world, besides writing a best-selling book.
Fast forward to today and he is employed as Head of Digital at a large Group (100+) of independent businesses. Being responsible for the online growth of 100+ independent brands is much like running an agency without having any of the hassles. He is also the founder of Talk About Digital, a community of digital marketers all sharing the truth about digital.
In this session, Mark will show you why Wix is one of the most underrated platforms on the market and yet it is one of the fastest growing website builders on the planet. He will explain how its functionality, flexibility and scalability makes it the best solution for your business.
Head of Digital at
Hakim Group & Founder
Talk About Digital
Caryn Sher
Owner
Jack Be Nimble
Caryn is a marketing enthusiast. She is the heart and mind of Jack Be Nimble, a Strategic Marketing Services consultancy. Her career has traversed through Business Consulting to Retail, Brand Management to Marketing Innovation, Portfolio Management to Capability Development. Caryn brings loads of experience to the table. She has worked for brands big and small, local and global, in product categories as diverse as Tech, Beer, Financial Services, Furniture, Cereal, Footwear, Pharma - you name it!
Our moderator (and referee), Caryn will make sure that the contestants fight fair and obey all the rules. She will ensure that there are no low blows and has the mandate to stop the fight if there is too much blood being spilled.
As an unbiased marketing expert, Caryn will extract the key points that you need in order for you to make an informed decision on which platform is best for your business.
Darren Brick
Experienced Google Ads and Google Analytics Professional. Darren is the Google Ads Director at SearchKings Africa™, leading a team which is currently managing over 250+ clients worldwide. He and his team work with a wide range of clients assisting them with online branding and lead generation.
His primary expertise lies in Google's performance marketing and web analytics by providing consultation and results-driven solutions to clients.
Brick is qualified with a BCom in Strategic Management and Marketing from UNISA and went on to complete a Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PDM) from Wits Business School, followed by an MBA from Wits Business School.
In this session, he will show you why a Paid marketing strategy is the most effective way to attract new customers and drive revenue
Director of Google Ads
Search Kings Africa
Danny Gavin
Danny Gavin is the founder and chief strategist at Optidge, an award-winning Houston based digital marketing agency, and is an advisor to several startups. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Houston’s C.T. Bauer College of Business teaching master’s level classes and executive education on social media and search engine marketing. Danny is also Vice-President Director of Marketing for e-commerce company Brian Gavin Diamonds, which he has helped to grow to the Inc 5000, as well as, Internet Retailer’s Top 1000 and 50 Fastest Growing E-commerce Companies.
He has also consulted for an array of companies including Airswift, Blinds.com, BrainCheck, Brown-Forman, Conviva, Houston Public Media, OpenStax, and TimeHop.
MBA, Chief Strategist and Founder
Optidge
Melissa Rowlston
Founder
Maverick Marketing
and Maverick Web
Think Shopify South Africa, think Melissa Rowlston. This maverick of the South African eCommerce industry leads a team of designers and developers who work their magic to launch businesses into the eCommerce space. Her specialities range from simple stores to highly custom-designed user platforms.
There’s no one better to take us through the A-B-Cs.
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Felix Norton
Felix studied computer science & game design at UCT and is the Founder and Managing Director at WOWW. An aspiring entrepreneur, Felix works with a variety of mediums in the digital space. Felix is the Managing Director of WOWW, a WordPress focused digital agency in Cape Town.
Having built and managed over 50 onlines stores, Felix and his team have great experience in building and growing profitable e-commerce websites with WooCommerce.
Felix will explain why he is passionate about WooCommerce as the best ecommerce platform, and how it will give you more control and flexibility to sell online.
Managing Director
WOWW
Andy Higgins
Managing Director
uAfrica
Andy Higgins is an experienced professional in all aspects of ecommerce including online marketplaces, payments and logistics. He has worked in the ecommerce industry his entire career spanning more than two decades across 5 continents.
Andy founded bidorbuy and was instrumental in starting PayFast in South Africa while also having been involved in the early stages of Takealot.com.
Andy has served on a number of boards including bidorbuy, PayFast, Private Property and uAfrica. A career highlight includes working closely with the Shopify team in Canada to launch the Shopify eCommerce platform in South Africa.
In this talk you Andy will discuss why ecommerce is the next big ‘Goldrush’ and why this is the perfect time to launch an ecommerce offering.
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Joel Bronkowski
Head of Strategic Partnerships
Paystack
Joel is one of just a few people that have managed to work at both WooCommerce (Automattic) and more recently Shopify where he worked on strategic and channel partnerships. Since the early days of Woo, he has seen ecommerce boom in South Africa and is passionate about the tech and growth trends happening in the continent.
As moderator (and referee), Joel will make sure that this is a fair fight and that all the rules are obeyed. Seriously though, as an unbiased ecommerce expert, Joel will be able to extract the points that you need in order for you to make an informed decision on what is best for your business.
Michael Harf
CEO
Syte
A trained engineer, Michael started the first local coffee drive-through which later pivoted into the largest supplier of office coffee machines in South Africa. This company grew primarily through data-driven digital marketing which led Michael to found Syte — a data-driven digital marketing sales agency which specialises in ecommerce and b2b lead generation.
In this talk Michael shares many of the tricks of the trade that lead him to success.
Brett Perlstein
CEO & founder
SearchKings Africa
Brett Perlstein, chartered accountant turned Google Ads specialist, gave up his suits for trainers to carve out a niche offering in the Google agency landscape of South Africa. He has spent the past five years nurturing businesses and unlocking their true potential online through the power of Google Ads and SearchKings’ custom-built technology.
In this session, Perlstein unlocks the value of understanding our distinctive and varying needs underpinned by data.
Josh Jaffe
Creative Director
Brand Infusion
Josh founded Brand Infusion, a creative agency focused on print and digital media in 2010. Since then, Brand Infusion continues to provide Branding, Design, Web and Mobile Development to clients in various sectors, including National Banks, Hedge Funds, International Hotel Chains, Fintech Companies, Diamond Groups, Nonprofits and Start Ups. Their clients are based in South Africa, Israel, England and America.
In this sessions, Josh reveals 10 years of trade secrets
Rhys Downard
Lead Analyst
Media Rocket
As Lead Digital Marketing analyst at Media Rocket, Rhys Downard spends most of his time nose deep in data. He helps businesses understand their digital data, online marketing value chain and what it takes to operationalise a Data-Driven Marketing environment, — helping companies improve processes, deliver a better customer experience and boost revenue.
Ryan Bacher
Ryan Bacher founded and runs NetFlorist – South Africa's best known and longest serving online florist and gift emporium. He is a named board member of the Entrepreneur’s Association and the South African Forum for Retailers.
With 21 years of skin in the game, Bacher will introduce us to the fundamentals of user experience design.
Founder and managing director
NetFlorist
Dylan Berger
Project Manager and Copywriter
Brand Infusion
Dylan holds a BCom in Entrepreneurial Management from the University of Johannesburg. Over the past decade, he has acquired vast experience in fields ranging from marketing management, to customer care, training and logistics.
Dylan is a respected expert in building digital strategies, and has been the master architect behind many successful website builds.
David Marshall
David Marshall has 30 years’ experience in sales and tech. Over the past four years, Marshall has concentrated his attention on live chat for sales and support with a focus on bots and artificial intelligence.
With his impressive global client base, Marshall is best positioned to guide us in turning a website into a professional and robust sales and customer service tool.
CEO and owner
ChatMarshal.com
Sell
Providing online support and chat
Graeme Lazarus
Graeme Lazarus is a doyen of the last-mile logistics industry – the service that delivers our products to our customers.
With an acute understanding of all its intricacies, Lazarus will unlock the criteria we need to consider when weighing up delivery solutions.
Managing director
RAM Hand to Hand Couriers
Deliver
Packaging your product
in the best way
Anita Erasmus
uAfrica.com offers a custom-built shipping solution that helps online merchants streamline their shipping and selling processes.
Anita Erasmus’ years of experience working closely with eCommerce merchants and courier companies positions her to guide us through the criteria of selecting the best online tracking and security systems.
Business manager
uAfrica Technologies
Deliver
How not to lose money when it comes to eCommerce logistics
Richard Frank
Richard Frank is head of digital at Flow. He has extensive experience in managing large development teams, complex web projects and setting digital strategy and protocols.
He will use this knowledge to share a checklist with us that ensures we build a site that delivers optimally.
Director of digital
Flow Communications
Build
Is your website firing on all cylinders? What to check
for right now
Rahul Jain
Rahul Jain has advised some of America’s largest retailers and airlines on how to improve their conversion rates. Locally, he has worked with Pepkor, Zando, SweepSouth and many more.
He’ll cover the Holy Grail of eCommerce – how to make sure leads convert to cash.
Co-founder
Peach Payments
Sell
Why checkout conversion matters
and how to optimise it
Lars Veul
Pargo is a smart logistics platform that creates accessible, convenient and reliable delivery for anybody in Africa through a tech-enabled network of Pargo pick-up points.
Lars Veul has worked at Groupon, is an Alibaba eFounder fellow, an Endeavor Entrepreneur, holds a BSc in Communication Science from the University of Amsterdam and propedeuse in Law from Amsterdam University – and he delivers.
Director and co-founder
Pargo
Deliver
How to overcome logistics challenges and grow revenue by ensuring accessible delivery to your online customers
Derek Cikes
Derek Cikes is our 1+1 = 3 kind of guy. He leverages off 21 years of financial services experience building successful ventures at Hollard for Edcon, Wesbank and Ooba. Cikes and his team at Payflex are revolutionising online payment solutions.
A keen believer in win-win models, Cikes will guide our businesses on a journey to increase online sales and add real value to customers.
Commercial director
Payflex.co.za
Sell
How to decrease cart abandonment rates by 30%
Andrew Smith
Andrew Smith is the co-founder and CEO of South Africa’s leading kitchen and home retailer, Yuppiechef. Founded as a part-time venture, Yuppiechef has since grown into one of South Africa’s leading omnichannel retailers.
Yuppiechef has won a ream of technology and service-related awards, and continues to delight consumers with best-in-class customer service, logistics and a wide range of the world’s most premium kitchen and homeware brands.
Find out how in this session.
Co-founder and CEO
Yuppiechef
Plan
The Yuppiechef story
Peter Richards
Senior SEO Manager
Jellyfish
Build
Super power: Championing SEO best practice in web builds
Joining us from the UK, Peter Richards has over 10 years’ experience within the search engine optimisation (SEO) industry. He has managed a wide variety of campaigns and contributed to high profile web builds as part of a highly motivated and dedicated team of professionals at one of the world’s leading digital agencies.
His super-power will be revealed...
Tara Turkington
CEO
Flow Communications
Market
Digital marketing: What you
need to know
Tara Turkington founded Flow in a spare bedroom in her home. Fifteen years, 50 awards, 60 employees and work in 30 countries later, Flow is now one of South Africa’s largest and best-known marketing and communications companies.
Turkington was awarded the Best Individual Influencer Marketer of the Year Award at the prestigious New Generation Digital and Social Media Awards. In this talk, she gives us the low-down of what we need to know to get on the road to digital marketing.