As the founder of Purple Plumm Brand Communications, South Africa's results-driven agency for retail spaces, Vanessa Fourie has garnered acclaim for her success in South African retail and mall strategy and consulting. She is the former Vice President of the SACSC, South Africa’s retail body, and former head of the organisation's Education Committee and Course Director for the CFSCM, in collaboration with CE UP; for whom she still lectures annually. Vanessa is considered one of the leading consultants and authorities in Retail Brand Communications and Marketing. Internationally she holds the CMD [Certified Marketing Director] Certification via the ICSC, and locally continues her membership and involvement with SACSC. Recently, Vanessa joined VEGA School as a part-time Navigator, both in Digital Brand Strategy [SLP] and Brand Business Principles and Fundamentals [Under-grad]. 2020 included Digital Citizenship and saw her join the Vega Online campus for Digital Brand Strategy. She also lectures at the IMM in Marketing disciplines.

Josephine Philemon has over 22 years of experience in the social development and human rights field where she wrote numerous project concepts and reports on successfully implemented activities to local and international donors. She collaborated on a handbook of ‘Concepts in Public Service Provisions’ for The Budget Project based at the Applied Fiscal Research Centre (AFReC), UCT.   She started a Rapporteuring and Transcription company, JLP Consultants & Rapporteurs, and has since worked in seven provinces in South Africa providing multiple rapporteurs and minute-takers to do report-writing for diverse events: Three BRICS conferences; The Inter-Academy Partnership Conference on Science Advice;  The Third African Youth Agripreneurs Forum & Agri-Pitch Competition, African Development Bank;  The Global Aviation Gender Summit and numerous other conferences.