WASPA management committee assigned responsibilities.

The Wireless Application Service Providers’ Association (WASPA) has announced the names of the people driving its management committee for 2010 and the portfolios and working groups they will be responsible for.

WASPA founder Leon Perlman once again serves as the organisation’s chairman. Said Perlman, “I’m delighted to once again serve the industry as the chairman of WASPA. I would also like to thank all outgoing management committee members for their dedication to the industry during the past year, as well as thank all the returning members for once again making their time and expertise available to WASPA and its members.

“We’re expecting another year of excellent growth for all our members as the mobile market continues to grow. By lobbying for our industry’s interests and providing a self-regulation mechanism for WASPs, we will continue to instill consumer and business confidence in the WASP industry to support its growth.”

The new management committee together with their areas of responsibility is as follows:

• Casper de Villiers, Clickatell’s co-founder and operations director, will once again serve on the WASPA management committee and will chair the finance working group. He will also be WASPA’s vice chair and treasurer for 2010. He has more a decade of experience in the WASP environment and is Clickatell’s representative at the GSM Association. De Villiers has served on the WASPA Code of Conduct Working Group in the past.
• Michael Hainebach of ViaMedia, is a long-standing member of the WASPA management committee and of the Code of Conduct Working Group. He will chair the Code of Conduct Working Group this year. Currently the marketing director at ViaMedia, Hainebach previously worked for the pioneering WASP, iTouch.
• Neil Hutchinson, managing director and co-founder of Grapevine Interactive Marketing, is another returning member of the management committee and will again chair the Public Relations Working Group. He has extensive marketing experience and nearly a decade of experience in the WASP environment.
• Russel Stromin, an industry veteran with more than 20 years experience in the technology industry and head of Strike Media, will chair the Membership Working Group.
• Norman Parkin, CEO of Integrat, has been intimately involved in WASPA since the beginning. As co-founder of Integrat – a company which focuses on aggregation services – he has gained extensive experience of mobile networks as well as WASPs and their specific needs. He will be the chair of the Aggregator Working Group.
• Gavin Penkin, Exactmobile’s director of Portal and Mobile Entertainment services, has been a member of the WASPA management committee for the past three years and has been active on the various committees since WASPA’s inception. He will head the Networks Working Group as chairman.
• Leon Perlman, the founder of WASPA, is taking the role of chairman as well as of chair of the Regulatory Working Group. A former scientist, he has been in the telecommunications industry since the early 1990’s. WASPA’s chairman since 2005, Perlman has also served on the WASPA’s regulatory portfolio since the organisation was established.