Graham Warsop

Executive Creative Director

When Graham Warsop graduated with an LLM from Cambridge and qualified as a Barrister he realised that his passion could not be satisfied in the field of law. Having arrived in South Africa in 1987 to finish a novel, he took a job as a Copywriter in a local advertising agency. After 18 months in the industry Graham thought of moving companies. Then he thought, instead of moving companies, why not start one? Thus some handshakes and a fabulous short story by Guy de Maupassant later, The Jupiter Drawing Room was born. Never one to do things by halves Graham went from Junior Copywriter to Chairman and Executive Creative Director overnight.

As well as chairing The Jupiter Drawing Room (South Africa), Graham is hands-on Chief Creative Officer of the Johannesburg office.

A Creative Circle Hall of Famer, Graham has won more creativity points (as measured by the official SA Creativity Survey) than any other Creative Director in South Africa. He was the first SA Creative Director to serve on the juries of all four major international festivals (Cannes, D&AD, The One Show and Clio's) the latter he Chaired (Print & Poster) in 2001. In 2007 and 2008, he was included in Neil French's "Best of the Best" jury at the World Press Awards. In 2006, The London International Advertising Award's 20th anniversary retrospective acknowledged Graham as the most awarded Creative Director in the history of the festivals. The following year, he became the first Jury President of The London International Advertising Awards for both the advertising and design disciplines.

A fervent believer in integrated creativity, Graham has grown The Jupiter Drawing Room to take a totally through-the-line approach to its work.

In 2007, Graham received a Lifetime Achievement Award from FinWeek (which he finds strange as he is hopeful he still has some of his lifetime left to devote to The Jupiter Drawing Room's creative department).

Given Mkhari

Non-Executive Chairman

While a student at The University of the North (now University of Limpopo), Given Mkhari knew that his real talents lay in the art of communication. He used his passion for creativity to co-found the first campus based radio station to be licensed by the broadcasting authority.

He went on to join New York based radio station, WBLS, and subsequently became an international correspondent for Metro FM, untill Kaya FM convinced him to join their management team.

He's been a producer, a deputy programme's manager and even one of the most recognised South African Talk Show hosts, but these days it is in the boardroom where he really shines.

Having co-founded The Communications Firm in 2000, Given went on to co-establish MSG Afrika Investment Holdings, an investment company with interests in media and related sectors.

It was via MSG's subsidiary MSG Rimani that Given invested in The Jupiter Drawing Room and became a director of the company.

Given is currently CEO of MSG and serves as director to eight other public & private companies, including the International Marketing Council of SA.

Reneé Silverstone

CEO

Reneé Silverstone is CEO of The Jupiter Drawing Room (Johannesburg), which bills in excess of R1 billion per annum.

Reneé has always had a flair for the dramatic and even as a young girl in Bloemfontein she suspected she was destined for fame. She decided after tenure at Wits studying English and Drama that her talents would be better spent in business. So she exited the world of theatre and took centre stage in the boardroom. Her performance was noted and at the age of just 24 she was appointed to the board of Grey Phillips, one of the country's leading agencies.

Reneé officially opened the doors of The Jupiter Drawing Room for business with Graham Warsop in May 1989 and is particularly proud of the fact that after 21 years of constant accolades, Jupiter was voted Agency of the Decade by Finweek’s Adreview (Tony Koenderman) for 2010.

Jupiter was voted one of the Top 20 companies to work for in South Africa for the past three consecutive years by Deloitte and in 2007, it was the industry winner in the Telecommunications, Media, TV, Radio and Press Category. It holds a portfolio of enviable blue chip clients, including Edcon, Sasol, Absa and MTN.

Today Reneé is recognised as a businesswoman and entrepreneur; she regularly meets with international businessmen and women, is called upon to address audiences at top business institutions, and participates in media interviews on the economy and big business in SA. Her successes have taken her far beyond the traditionally confined spaces of advertising and propelled the industry onto the broader stage of SA commerce. For this she has been awarded 2007 Businesswoman of the Year (Entrepreneur), Agency Leader of the Year by Financial Mail’s AdFocus in 2007, and was voted Absa Jewish Achiever of the Year, also in 2007. She was a finalist in the 2008 International Ernst & Young business achievers awards and was one of three finalists for the 2008 Johnnie Walker Celebrating Strides Awards.

Reneé is always intimately involved in driving the agency’s CSI initiatives – to the value of approximately R1.5 million per annum. She was also personally involved in setting targets and implementing the company’s employment equity and skills development programme.

And then there’s the multinational deal to take the agency global. This agreement with WPP, which has seen the mutinational purchase 49% of The Jupiter Drawing Room, will change the future for the agency and lead Reneé along an even more challenging path.

Alison Deeb

Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer

Before Alison Deeb joined The Jupiter Drawing Room, she was the Managing Director of Ogilvy Mather Rightford, Gauteng. Originally from Cape Town, Alison's twenty-three years of experience are matched by a fresh faced enthusiasm for good ideas. A trait which has served her well across the wide variety of accounts, clients and staff members for whom she has been responsible during her career.

She has worked on several key accounts including SA Tourism, M-Net, Nestlé, KFC, Sun International Resorts and Casinos, GlaxoSmithKline, Kimberly-Clark, Nedcor Limited, United Tobacco/British American Tobacco and Audi.

After a short sabbatical she decided to re-enter the formal advertising environment. In April 2004 she settled on The Jupiter Drawing Room because she held the company's creative reputation in high regard. As a member of the board and the Head of Account Management, Alison restructured the department and has been involved in the restructure and implementation plans for the business in 2005 and beyond.

In recognition of her endeavours, Alison was appointed MD of The Jupiter Drawing (Johannesburg) in March 2005. Her passion for running, original thinking and her 11 year old daughter’s sense of humour keep her going.

Simphiwe Mdlalose

Director Transformation

The media sector has been a focal point of Simphiwe Mdlalose's life for more than 15 years. While achieving his B.Com (accounting) from the University of the North, Simphiwe worked as a campus reporter and also found time to set up the local campus radio station - not just any campus radio station but one that would become the first campus-based community radio station to be licensed by the broadcasting authority.

In 1996 he was appointed Training Manager at the National Community Radio Forum, servicing more than 70 community radio stations. That was when his skills in the media sector branched out and he became director of a skills development company, Succinct (Propriety) Limited.

His focus was entertainment and the arts, and he worked with some of the biggest South African brands, including M-Net. A natural entrepreneur, Simphiwe, went on to co-found The Communications Firm as well as co-established MSG, a progressive media and communications company.

As a consultant Simphiwe specializes in: facilitation, station management, financial management, community controlled programming, marketing and advertising and policy formulation. He is CEO of commercial radio station Capricorn FM and serves on the boards of eight other companies.

Mohale Ralebitso

Chairman

Mohale is Chairman of The Jupiter Drawing Room (Jhb) and CEO of MSG-Rimani which owns a controlling interest in TJDR. He joined the TJDR team from the Liberty Group where he was the Group Executive responsible for marketing and a Group Executive Forum member. He had joined the Liberty Group from TBWA South Africa, where he was Group Development Director having joined the TBWA South Africa Group as a Deputy Managing Director of TBWA HUNT LASCARIS in 2000. He led the group's transformation process, business development, senior client and stakeholder interaction and numerous organisational development and new business initiatives that delivered unprecedented growth.

Mohale has worked on and driven strategy development and execution for a number of leading international and local companies in the Transport, Tourism, Beverages, FMCG, Financial Services, ICT and Broadcasting sectors including numerous product and company launches. He spent two years as a researcher with the Ford Foundation Diversity Initiative at the Queens College of the City University of New York (CUNY) during which time he worked on published studies examining housing in New York City (1991-1992) and examining factors affecting performance in mathematics and science among Latino, African American, Asian and White youth (1992-1993). He graduated from the City University of New York (CUNY) with a BA Honors in Political Science and a BA Honors in Sociology with a Psychology minor in 1993, but in good conscience and protest skipped the graduation ceremony where he was to be celebrated as an iconic student leader by the college president whose policies he opposed. He continues to lecture at SA's leading academic institutions by invitation having 'retired' from academia in 1995 with his last academic post at UCT.

Mohale played a significant part in the delivery of South Africa's first democratic elections with the IEC in 1994 and later drove the campaign that delivered South Africa's first truly democratic voter's roll (1998-1999) and 1999 election campaign that sealed SA's path as democratic state. Among many achievements in life and business, he played a pivotal role in the drafting and adoption of the Advertising industry BEE scorecard having earlier served in the BMF helping to shape SA's Employment Equity policy and implementation framework.

He serves on several boards of companies and social development institutions.

Tebogo Skwambane

Director

Tebogo is a partner and founding member of North Road Consulting, a strategy consulting firm.

Prior to founding North Road Consulting, Tebogo had a successful career at Bain & Company in Boston, London and Johannesburg. She has extensive local and international consulting experience specifically in mining, aerospace and defence, fast moving consumer goods and manufacturing. Tebogo has worked with clients in these and other industries on growth strategies, operational guidance and turnaround, performance improvement, organizational effectiveness and performance management.

Prior to attaining her MBA, Tebogo spent 4 years in financial services at the International Finance Corporation, World Bank in Washington D.C. and at Brown Brothers Harriman and Company in Boston, Massachusetts.

Current and previously held board and committee positions include Alstom South Africa, Setpoint Holdings, EOH, Lunsemfwa Hydro Power and the Regulating Committee for Meteorological Services.

Tebogo holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science (Dartmouth College, USA) and an MBA (Harvard Business School, USA).

Tebogo's interests include running, diving, painting and drawing. She is also active in the community and regularly volunteers her time to homes such as the Ethembeni Home for Abandoned Children in Johannesburg.

Andrew Scott

Director

Since 1999 Andrew has been WPP's Director of Corporate Development leading the Group's global Mergers and Acquisition activity. In this role he is responsible for managing the large number of strategic acquisitions made by WPP each year to help position the group in faster-growing functional and geographic areas.

Andrew also leads WPP's International Specialist Communications Division which contains businesses in a diverse range of marketing services sectors - Promotion and Relationship Marketing, Sports Marketing, Custom Publishing and Media, Technology and Production Services.

Prior to joining WPP Andrew was a strategy consultant at LEK Consulting. He holds an MBA with distinction from INSEAD.

Laurence Mellman

Director

Laurence is Director of Special Projects at WPP plc, and, as such, represents WPP, one of The Jupiter Drawing Room's principal shareholders, on the Board.

Born and raised in Manchester, England, Laurence has a Degree in Commerce and Accounting from the University of Birmingham. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Price Waterhouse in London and subsequently joined WPP in 1996.

Laurence has undertaken a number of roles at WPP. At the parent company level he has previously had responsibility for managing the Group's mergers and acquisitions activity in Europe, Africa and Asia and he has also had the role of Chief Operating Officer of WPP's International Specialist Communications businesses. In recent years his primary role has been at an operating company level where Laurence is currently Chief Operating Officer for the United and Red Cell advertising networks within WPP.

Laurence's passions include football (both playing and watching), travel, his family and skiing. He has been involved with The Jupiter companies throughout the lengthy discussions with WPP and very much enjoys his regular visits to South Africa.

Kagiso Musi

Director

Kagiso has varied and extensive experience in communications, strategic planning, sponsorship marketing and public relations. This experience was gained through a variety of brands in FMCG, telecoms, entertainment, corporate and financial sectors.

She is curious about brands and branding, consumer insights and changing perceptions about products and services. She's intrigued by the role that marketing plays in the economics of a country and how perception change can occur from an intricate understanding of people's values and insights and messaging that can ultimately begin to alter those perceptions.

She is a graduate of AAA School of Advertising (and has various qualifications from AAA) and holds a MAP post-graduate qualification from Wits Business School. She holds a seat on CAFÉ, the MAC (Marketing, Advertising and Communications) Transformation Committee and Charter Council, set up by The Department of Trade and Industry.

Kagi has left her mark on many agencies including Publicis as a client service director, TBWA Hunt Lascaris as a group account director as well as Sonnenberg Murphy Leo Burnett as an account executive and account director. Kagi's strongest skill is in identifying and securing new business from existing and new clients. She is a great asset to have at Jupiter. Her experience and self-motivation is something to aspire towards.

Sean Reuben

Director

Sean is a Chartered Accountant by trade but offers so much more on the ground. With stellar professional qualifications including a Bachelor of Accounting and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Accounting from the University of Durban-Westville, Sean also obtained international certifications in Information Systems, Audit & Security. Due to his experience in various roles, Sean has grown a diversified portfolio of skills in the Finance, Audit, Risk Management, Information Security and Commercial fields. He has over 12 years of post-articles experience, nearly five years at Ernst & Young and more than seven years in commerce and industry.

A true team player, Sean has excellent managerial and communication skills and considers his people management skills to be one of his key strengths. He has performed counselling and mentoring roles, and is passionate about contributing to the development of people and teams.

Prior to joining The Jupiter Drawing Room (Jhb), Sean was employed by SAP Africa as the group financial manager, where he was responsible for its complete financial function, reporting directly to the CFO. He was also personally responsible for Mergers and Acquisitions, Special Projects, Taxation, Company Valuations, and Strategic Business Modelling.

Sean's interests and activities include reading, music, watching English football and SA rugby. He also enjoys fitness training, gardening and home DIY.