PASA Leaders

She is a previous chair of both PASA’s Education and TVET Sectors. Orenna is Managing Director of Troupant Publishers, a specialist publishing house which develops post-school education and training materials for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges and the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET). Orenna has been manager and director at Maskew Miller Longman, Managing Director of Heinemann Education and Managing Director of the Pearson Schools Group. Outside of the publishing sector, Orenna has served as Managing Director: Africa of City & Guilds, a UK awarding body offering accredited qualifications mapped to regulated qualifications frameworks. She has consulted to companies and organisations in the UK and South Africa in the fields of education, training, equity, cultural industries and strategy.

Andrew is the Digital Publisher at Wits University Press, based in Johannesburg, South Africa. His publishing experience has largely been in academic and reference publications – books, journals and digital products - has worked with most major European and US academic publishers, and he is closely involved with standards development and implementation especially for metadata, identifiers, XML-based workflows and digital products. Andrew serves as a board and committee member for the Open Access Data Trust, Crossref, NISO and ANFASA.

John Eglington qualified as a Chartered Accountant with PWC in 2000 and worked for several years within the profession, both locally and abroad. John joined the South African Publishers' Industry in 2007 and is currently serving as Finance Director for Shuter & Shooter Publishers. John has a wealth of experience in internal controls and financial and operational management. John has served in the position of Treasurer for the Publishing Association of South Africa since 2015.

Mpuka Radinku has been the Executive Director of PASA from 2013 to date. He previously worked in various publishing companies as publisher, publishing manager, publishing director and general manager from 1994. He represents PASA on various local and international stakeholder bodies including the FP&M Seta Board, Legal Deposit Committee, IPA, APNET and BUSA. Prior to joining publishing he was a teacher.

Janine Loedolff is the Publishing Manager of Higher Education at Oxford University Press South Africa. Having completed a Masters degree in English Literature at Stellenbosch University, Janine joined the South African publishing sector in 2008. Her earlier experience in the publishing sector lies within product development and production. More recently, Janine’s focus has shifted to a strategic management role, with the overarching objective to advance initiatives that deliver effective, accessible and affordable content solutions to the Higher Education sector. She is passionate about sharing her knowledge and experience with new publishers and publishing studes.

Themba Msimanga is a Shuter and Shuter Provincial manager based in Gauteng. Joined the publishing industry in 1996 as a provincial marketer for Educum publishers and later worked for Kagiso Publishers holding various positions in KZN, Teacher trainer; Publisher; and later provincial manager. Joined Shuter and shooter in 1999 to date. He has served PASA before in various capacities, EDEX Limpopo, North West and Gauteng. Chairperson in Gauteng and deputy chair for many years. Themba is a teacher by profession and believes that education is a key to success. His last school was Sukuma Comprehensive school based in PM/Burg. He was part of the school management team (HOD Languages)./p>

Nitesh has been with the industry for 16 years and served in various roles, notably serving as GM for Pearson South Africa up until the Business was sold to Novus Print and rebranded to Maskew Miller Learning in Dec 2022. He is currently serving as Executive Director for Commercial and Sales for Maskew Miller Learning. Outside publishing , Nitesh has served as Campus Director for the Pearson institute of Higher Education and is a former Teacher. Nitesh is grateful to be part of helping develop the learners and teachers of South Africa and finds working in the industry exciting and rewarding.

Sibonelo has over a decade of experience in the school's publishing industry, driving business growth and leading high-performing sales teams. With a deep understanding of the education sector and a passion for delivering innovative solutions, Sibonelo has established a strong reputation for developing and executing sales strategies that exceed targets and foster long-term partnerships with educators and institutions. Throughout his career, Sibonelo has demonstrated expertise in market analysis, customer engagement, and team management, consistently delivering results-driven sales performance and contributing to the growth and success of publishing companies he has worked for. As Head of National Sales for Macmillan Education, Sibonelo continues to leverage his industry expertise and leadership skills to drive business expansion and make a positive impact on education.

Carlo Scollo Lavizzari, a lawyer qualified in South Africa, England & Wales, and Switzerland. Carlo specializes in intellectual property protection and by now has more than 21 years of work experience with law firms in Africa, Europe, Switzerland and the United States of America. He is a strategist and problem solver in negotiations, conflict resolution and policy, participating actively in global advocacy for norm setting and in litigation. Carlo is fluent in four languages: German, English, French and Italian, and has a very basic proficiency in Chinese.

Nicol is a freelance publisher, editor and author, specialising in school and university textbooks and literature. His latest published title is a guide on Afrikaans usage, the Pharos Afrikaansgids (2018). He was formerly a university lecturer, teacher, head of a teachers’ centre, superintendent of education, language subject adviser, head of the Western Cape Education Department curriculum development unit, and manager of publishing in the 11 official South African languages as an educational publisher. He is involved in the management of intellectual property and copyright, as well as providing fully accessible materials to print impaired persons.

Wikus van Zyl is the Manager of UJ Press, based in the Library at the University of Johannesburg. He has an Honours Degree in Publishing from the University of Pretoria (UP) and an MBA in Digital Transformation from the Johannesburg Business School (JBS). He has been involved in Scholarly Publishing since 2004 and has been serving in different roles in the PASA Scholarly Committee and the ASSAf National Scholarly Book Publishers Forum (NSBPF). He is passionate about Open Access publishing and is currently pursuing a DPhil in Digital Transformation focusing on Scholarly Publishing.

Kgaogelo Shounyane has just over a decade in the publishing industry and has worked for some of the leading publishing companies in the country. She holds an Honours Degree in Information Sciences (Publishing) from the University of Pretoria. Her love for education has made her passionate about publishing and she wants to make an impact and be the part of the generation that changes the face of publishing. She believes that even though education is for improving the lives of others, the publishing industry plays a big role in making that possible.

Ruth Delannoie, Managing Director of SMME educational publishing company Mthombothi Studios. Mthombothi Studios is a 100% black owned and 100% woman owned company. The entity’s main focus is the production and publication of children’s books and reading material aimed at establishing and improving literacy levels of young readers. Ruth is presently the PASA SMMEs Sector Chairperson and actively involved in supporting the transformation of the SMMEs within this association. She was previously engaged in the financial sector in various leadership roles in the personal and business markets. During that period, she focused on the transformation of business units, growth and development of SMMEs. She is qualified as an Associate Member of the Institute of Bankers in South Africa and completed an Executive Development Programme.

Kelly Ansara has worked in the publishing industry for nearly 15 years, having worked her way up from behind the counter at a bookshop through various departments in some of South Africa’s biggest publishing houses. Currently, she is the Sales Manager of the Independent Publishers and Local Publishing lists at Jonathan Ball Publishers. She has degrees in both journalism and creative writing, and a Master’s in publishing (based on her thesis ‘Redefining “Chick-Lit” and Women’s Publishing within Trade Publishing in South Africa’). She is based in Johannesburg with her husband and son.

After a long stint in the education profession, Gan joined the publishing world in 2002 starting at Heinemann then moving on to Macmillan SA where he has taken on various management roles during the past 15 years. Currently he heads TVET sales. Gan believes that every child should have equal access to quality education so that they can reach their full potential.