Julian Gwillim

Julian is the founder of Aprio Strategic Communications and has over 30 years’ extensive experience in managing communication programmes with a particular focus on reputational enhancement campaigns.

Aprio has a team of 22 experienced communicators located in Johannesburg and Cape Town, and is one of South Africa’s leading communication advisory group’s working across key sectors of the corporate environment offering multi-stakeholder campaigns, crisis and issue management, and specialist investor relations.

Julian has extensive corporate and agency experience in South Africa and North America and has served as communication advisor for several JSE-listed companies and multinationals. His recent IPO experience includes Multichoice, Bidcorp, Long4Life, Dischem, Quilter/Old Mutual Wealth and Cartrack, together with major transactions such as Old Mutual’s managed separation, Barclays’ sell down of Absa, and Walmart and Starbucks’ respective entries into South Africa, among various other corporate actions.

Tracey Peterson

Tracey has over 25 years’ experience in communications and provides a varied range of services in communications, employee well-being and social development. These include media relations, internal communications, publications, writing and stakeholder engagement.

She is also experienced in managing HIV/Aids in the workplace, having designed, implemented and managed the award-winning programme at diamond mining company, De Beers. This experience was extended to the design and implementation of a community HIV/Aids programme, which sought to reduce the impact of the pandemic on the host and labour-sending communities important to the company, and was acknowledged nationally and globally for its foresight and impact.

Tracey also managed the Corporate Social Investment programme for De Beers, while being accountable for the broader social responsibility of the company in South Africa. She has been responsible for conceptualising and designing the strategy, message formulation and writing and annual stainable development reporting and more recently, integrated reporting.

Rio Matlhaku

Rio began working in public relations in 2001 at Beachhead Media & Investor Relations, which later became Financial Dynamics.

His strength lies in financial public relations, with wide-ranging experience with clients such as Alexander Forbes, Discovery Group, the Financial Planning Institute, Nedbank, Assupol Life, Airports Company of South Africa, Centre for Development and Enterprise, Blue Catalyst and Samancor Chrome. Rio was also part of the team that re-launched the South African Competition Commission.

Before joining Aprio, Rio was with The Communications Firm, which is one of South Africa’s majority black-owned public relations companies with a reputation for its impactful communication strategies for various government departments, as well as on accounts including ArcelorMittal South Africa and Afrisam.

Janet Parker

Janet has more than 20 years of media and communications experience. For 16 years she was a financial journalist at the respected financial daily Business Day, where she ran the flagship Opinion & Analysis pages for 10 years. Prior to that she was Editor of the-then Management & Leadership page, Editor of the Companies & Markets section and a writer.

Before Business Day, she wrote numerous scripts for broadcast TV – documentaries, magazine programmes and a children’s education series – as well as a number of scripts for corporate videos and internal communications video newsletters.

Cecilia Pinto Taylor

Cecilia is a highly skilled communications specialist with more than 30 years’ in-house and consulting experience spanning international trade, strategic communications and media relations. Having started off in academia, Cecilia’s in-house communications experience was defined at Nedbank, where she was head of media relations for 11 years before joining a global corporate relations firm as a director.

During her time as a communications consultant, she has worked with major financial services firms including Investec, Liberty and Barclays Africa as well as other leading corporates such as Massmart and Lonmin, advising on media relations, reputation and issues management, crisis communication, stakeholder research and engagement and executive profiling. Current clients include high-profile organisations from across the business spectrum. Cecilia holds a BA Honours Degree in Literature from the University of the Witwatersrand and completed a Senior Management Development Programme through Wits Business School.

Michelle Copans

Michelle is a highly skilled communication specialist with over a decade’s experience in strategic communications and media relations. She has managed communication campaigns for a range of leading brands in mining, consumer, infrastructure, construction, finance, steel, petroleum, liquefied petroleum gas and retail industries.

She has worked closely with clients that include Wesizwe Platinum, Nestle SA, the Consumer Goods Council of SA, Business Process Outsourcing, Call Centre Industry Association, the Concrete Manufacturers Association, the Liquified Petroleum Gas Association South Africa, the Nepad Business Foundation, Business Unity of SA, ArcelorMittal SA, Total SA, Verimark, the Retail Congress Africa, the United Nations Foundation, Impala Platinum, RCL FOODS, Aveng, Capital Appreciation, TymeBank, Sorbet and Edcon.

Michelle has experience in writing editorial such as newsletters, corporate brochures, press releases and articles. She compiled the Wesizwe Platinum sponsored community newspaper, the Ledig Sun, for two years, and Aveng’s internal publications including Aveng News and Aveng World.

Dan Maré

Dan is an editor and writer with 13 years’ experience preparing a vast array of public and internal documents for South Africa’s most prominent companies.

He holds a Bachelor’s in Economics and an Honours in Philosophy.

Thomas Mclachlan

Thomas has had extensive background in Strategic Communications and designing Business-to-business communications solutions for clients in the UK and South Africa. He leads the Aprio Digital team in developing integrated strategies, supported by strong thought leadership, that get brands in front of the audiences, influencers and decision-makers that matter most to them.

Michael Rubenstein

Michael is a former senior marketer, brand strategist and communications specialist with over 25 years’ experience in marketing and general business management. He has performed a variety of marketing leadership roles in blue-chip companies such as SABC, Centurion Systems, BankservAfrica and Baker McKenzie.

He is also a marketing coach and has assisted various small and medium size businesses with development and implementation of marketing strategy. Michael is an accomplished business and life coach, writer, facilitator, public speaker and team motivator. During his career, Michael has rebranded four blue-chip national brands.

Over the years, Michael has specialised in building brands in blue-chip organisations, crafting marketing and communication strategies, and delivering solutions utilising various classical marketing and communications disciplines including services marketing, product marketing, B2B marketing, advertising, PR and corporate communications.

Mpho Dingalo

Mpho worked for Gold Fields in the Corporate Affairs Department for seven years, specialising in event management, content development, digital communications and stakeholder engagement. She has experience in social media management, collaborative platform development, website design, data and project management.

Her flair for working with visual materials and creative eye has seen her working in broadcast, travel and tourism, marketing research and advertising industries. Since 2014, she has worked with clients including Famous Brands, Pan African Resources, Total South Africa and Impala Platinum, Capital Appreciation, Long4Life and Richards Bay Minerals.

Ritz Pucci

Ritz is Aprio’s resident creative spark. Having been schooled in the performing arts, Ritz went on to study web and graphic design, social media management, software development and project-management solutions.

Ritz has been with Aprio since its inception, handling the company’s social media management and in-house design needs – a role that has grown considerably, both as Aprio has grown and given the explosion in social media and the emergence of new communications platforms.

Phillemon Mosala

Phillemon started working in the public relations and communication industry when he joined Aprio in 2013. While working at Aprio, he has gained experience in media relations, social media management, engaging with the media, organising media interviews, compiling media reports, media monitoring, developing media campaigns, and compiling press releases.

Phillemon has worked on accounts including ArcelorMittal South Africa, Edcon, Khulisa Social Solutions, Precrete and Impala Platinum.

Esme Arendse

Esme Arendse, the CEO, shareholder and director of Aprio Credence, is a seasoned reputation and communication strategist, with almost 25 years’ experience in corporate communications, the management of reputation risk and stakeholder engagement in large and complex multinational enter-prises.

Over the last few years Esme has specialised in advising executive teams on reputation risk and has led expert professional teams on major, confidential reputation risk issues. She works with companies to build capability and resilience for the management and mitigation of enterprise reputation risk. She has acted as lead reputation advisor for one of South Africa’s biggest corporate governance rehabilitation programmes, working alongside the client Exco, leading law firms, corporate finance and audit teams.

Lydia du Plessis

Lydia is an IR specialist with over 20 years’ experience across industries such as financial services, retail, technology, food producers and property. She has held executive roles in several Top 40 companies. Her work has earned her multiple awards for excellence in investor relations programmes, integrated and sustainability reporting.

Dylan Kopping

Graphic designer, illustrator, and digital generalist, Dylan is an integral part of the Aprio team, where he gets to flex his creative muscle on a daily basis. Dylan has the rare ability to transform business strategy into creative content. He has a Bachelor's degree in Graphic Design, and his skill set includes creative direction, web design, animated graphics, illustration, corporate identity, and digital marketing.

What Dylan loves most about his job, is fulfilling a client’s vision, and assisting the team in meeting their creative and strategic objectives.

Troye Brady

Troye started his career in the mining industry, working for companies such as BHP Billiton, Samancor (ferro-alloys) and Lonmin Platinum, mostly in market research and analysis. He also spent 15 years as a sell-side investment analyst covering commodities and mining stocks on the JSE, where he achieved several top-five FM ratings while at BJM and Nedcor Securities. He presently provides advisory services and assistance in Investor Relations and Sponsored Research, across multiple industries.