VIKA MPISANE

Vika Mpisane is the Chief Executive Officer of the ZA Domain Name Authority (ZADNA), the country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) Manager for South Africa’s domain - ZA. He has experience in project management, business development, general management, and policy development in areas such as trade and industry, economic policy, labour, education and ICT. He served in the Board of Directors (Excom) of Africa Top Level Domains (AfTLD) - the association of African ccTLDs – between June 2006 and July 2012. During this time, he served as AfTLD’s President/Chairman between April 2009 and July 2012. He played an important role in founding an African Internet community-supported and African Union Commission-endorsed .africa (dotAfrica) application submitted to ICANN by the ZA Central Registry (UniForum SA). He is currently an ex-officio member of the .africa Steering Committee comprised of the AUC and representatives from the African Internet community. He is also a member of the .africa Project Team that is responsible for applying to ICANN and for launching .africa. He also helped secure the endorsement of the ZACR by local authorities to apply to ICANN for the right to establish and operate .capetown, .durban and .joburg gTLDs. In 2009, he was elected into the ICANN ccNSO council, and continues as the ccNSO councilor until 2015. In the council, he is involved in several ccNSO structures, including the ccNSO Meetings Program Working Group (WG) and Finance WG, amongst other structures. His previous work experience includes working as a Public Sector Marketing Manager at Cortell Consulting (a business software consulting firm in South Africa), running his own consultancy, working as a Programmes Director of NEDLAC (National Economic Development & Labour Council) of SA, and working as a Transformation Officer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) in SA. A former student activist, Vika graduated with a B.Proc degree in 1997 and LLB (Honours law degree) in 1998 from the University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa).