About

Koos Bekker led the founding team of the M-Net/MultiChoice pay-television business in 1985. He was also a founder of the cellular telephony group MTN.  Koos headed the MIH group in its international and internet expansion until 1997, when he became chief executive of Naspers and lead the group until 2014. He serves on the boards of other companies in the wider group.  In April 2015 he succeeded Ton Vosloo as non-executive chair of Naspers. He holds a BA Honours and an honorary doctorate in commerce from Stellenbosch University, an LLB from the University of the Witwatersrand and an MBA degree from Columbia University, New York.

Mark Sorour joined the Naspers group in 1994, heading up business development and corporate finance globally. Following a tour of duty in Hong Kong and Amsterdam, he returned to Cape Town as group chief investment officer and had the responsibility for all global investment activities. On 26 February 2018 Mark retired after more than 20 years with the group. Mark remained on the board as a non-executive director. Mark is a qualified chartered accountant (SA) holding a BCom and DipAcc.

Fred Phaswana holds the qualifications MA (Unisa) and BComHons (Rand Afrikaans University, now University of Johannesburg), and obtained a BA (philosophy, politics and economics) from Unisa in 2010. He joined Naspers as a director in 2003. He is joint chair of the Mondi Group and former chair of The Standard Bank Group and of Standard Bank of South Africa Limited. 

Rachel Jafta holds the degrees MEcon and PhD, and is a professor of economics at Stellenbosch University. She joined Naspers as a director in 2003 and was appointed a director of Media24 in 2007. She is a member of the South African Economic Society, director of Econex, chair of the Cape Town Carnival Trust and a member of the management committee of the Bureau for Economic Research at Stellenbosch University. She is a member of the human resources and remuneration committee of Media24 and chair of the nomination committee of Media24. She was appointed chair of the Media24 board in April 2013 and on 9 June 2015 she was appointed to Naspers’s audit and risk committees. In 2015 she was appointed to the international advisory board of Fondação Dom Cabral Business School, Brazil.

Don Eriksson is a chartered accountant (SA) and an honorary life member of the Institute of Directors of Southern Africa (IoDSA). Mr Eriksson is chair of Oakleaf Insurance Company Limited, Insurance Outsourcing Managers Holdings Limited, Renasa Insurance Company, and the remuneration committee of Discovery Health Medical Scheme. He also serves as an independent non-executive director of Naspers Limited and chairs the Audit, Risk and Social and Ethics committees of the Naspers Group. He served on the council of IoDSA for a number of years and was a partner at Coopers & Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers Inc.).

Debra Meyer is professor of biochemistry and executive dean of the faculty of science at the University of Johannesburg. She was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of California, Davis, where she obtained a PhD in biochemistry and molecular biology. She has completed modules in media strategy and academic leadership at Harvard and Gibs (University of Pretoria) and makes regular contributions to several newspapers and magazines. She serves as trustee or board member of several organisations.

Craig Enenstein is the CEO of Corridor Capital, LLC, an operationally intensive private equity firm focused on the lower middle market. Corridor Capital, LLC is based in Los Angeles and was founded by Mr Enenstein in 2005. He holds an MBA in finance (Wharton School of Business), an MA International Studies (Lauder Institute, University of Pennsylvania) and a BA (University of California, Berkeley).

Ben van der Ross, who holds the qualification DipLaw (University of Cape Town) and is an admitted attorney. He also serves, inter alia, on the boards of FirstRand Limited, MMI Holdings Limited, Distell Limited and Lewis Group Limited.

Martin is responsible for Classifieds operations at Naspers, managing the OLX Group portfolio which includes dubizzle, Avito and letgo. He holds an MSc in Engineering from Delft University and an MBA from INSEAD. In seven years prior to Naspers, he held a variety of senior roles in internet companies, first at eBay and then at Schibsted. During this tenure, he accumulated extensive experience in all relevant business functions such as strategy, finance, product management, operations and M&A. Martin has worked in all life-cycle phases, from starting a greenfield operation to managing a mature, multi-national internet company. He has also written about business problem solving in his book, Thinking Backwards, which was published in five languages. Prior to starting his career in technology, he worked for seven years in business consulting at McKinsey.

Laurent was appointed CEO PayU in January 2016. He is responsible for global operations and brings extensive knowledge of digital payments and high-growth markets to PayU. He concluded an 11-year career at PayPal as Vice-President and General Manager for Continental Europe, where he successfully led the launch of PayPal in Africa, Israel, the Middle-East, and Russia. Laurent started his career as a business analyst at McKinsey, before founding TalentManager in 1999. TalentManager is a leading recruitment software provider and he spent three years growing the business, successfully selling the Italian operation. Laurent holds an MBA from the London Business School and is a graduate of Bocconi University in Italy (CEMS Master, International management).

Larry is CEO for Ventures and also responsible for group ecommerce strategy. His team identifies emerging trends, acquiring and operating disruptive platforms for the group. He has more than 20 years of professional experience and more than a decade with leading, global internet companies. Before joining Naspers Larry was VP and General Manager New Ventures at Trulia, a leading US online real estate marketplace. Previously, he spent eight years as senior executive at eBay, responsible for strategy and general management of many of its global marketplaces and classifieds assets. Prior to eBay, he spent several years as strategy advisor for leading global consumer goods companies. Larry started his career at the US Federal Reserve Board and holds a Bachelor's degree in Economics and an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley.

Charles is responsible for the group's listed internet assets, including Tencent Holdings Limited; a leading Chinese Internet company listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and Mail.ru; a leading Russian Internet company listed on the London Stock Exchange. He joined the Naspers group in 1998 in Hong Kong where he held the position of chief investment officer for the group’s internet division. Prior to joining Naspers, Charles held senior corporate finance and M&A positions at Cable & Wireless, Hong Kong Telecom and Deloitte. Charles is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia.

Ishmet Davidson joined Media24 in 2012 as head of community newspapers. He became the head of its news division in 2014, after which media distribution company On the Dot and Media24’s magazine division were added to his responsibilities. He has 16 years’ experience in the media industry and among other qualifications, holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree and an MBA from the Edinburgh Business School at Scotland’s Heriot Watt University. He became CEO of Media24 on October 1, 2018.