wo m e n in m ic e Marita Le Roux
Melanie Sillince
Michelle Hinrichsen
Group Manager: Sales & Sponsorship at Exposure Marketing Event Planner
Owner of Core Competency Event Planner
Managing Director of Iconique Branding Event Planner
Having spent over a decade in the exhibitions industry, Marita’s expertise – together with her dynamic and unique approach to sales – has made her exceptionally proficient in her role. Marita’s knowledge of exhibitions has grown along with her responsibilities. In 2005, Marita entered the exhibitions industry as a saleswoman selling exhibition space in malls. She has since gone on to become the group manager: Sales and Sponsorship at Exposure Marketing, which owns and produces MamaMagic, The Baby Expo – South Africa’s biggest pregnancy and parenting exhibition. She was also an integral part of the MamaMagic team that has won AXXO’s Best Consumer Exhibition of the Year for the past two years. Within Exposure Marketing, Marita is considered a dynamic leader who is passionate about ensuring the success of the company. From training and development within her own team to seeing that all departments have hands-on and knowledgebased experience of events, Marita is the key driver in exhibitions proficiency.
Melanie has 30 years’ experience behind her and her background speaks for itself: she has been actively involved in over 300 local and international conferences and congresses across various industries, and has managed five conferences on behalf of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in various countries. She was project director for the COP 17 Climate Change Response Expo in 2011 and also managed logistics for COP 11, held in Namibia in 2013. Melanie is hands-on with all of Core Competency’s events and she has extensive experience dealing with high-profile international delegates, heads of state, cabinet ministers and captains of industry who have attended many of the conferences she has managed. The staff Core Competency employs during the build-up to, and during, any event are students who are not yet earning a salary. They are then mentored and provided with a Certificate of Competency on completion of the project. She is a board member of the Council of Events Professionals.
Michelle is a selfmotivated woman determined to succeed in her chosen career through selfdiscipline and hard work. People are clearly her passion, evident in her love and enthusiasm for working within the hospitality sector. Michelle enjoys being creatively challenged and left a comfortable job to launch Iconique Brands – a consultancy that provides sales and marketing representation for brands within the travel and hospitality industry, as well as event management and incentive services for the corporate world. Iconique Brands focuses on servicing the film, television and pop culture industries. Michelle started her career in travel and hospitality working under Gavin Simpson at Holiday Holdings, then moved on to Cresta Hotels in 2010 as a sales manager, with other experience working for brands such as African Sun Hotels and Fairmont Zimbali. Michelle is also president of Travelbags, which has allowed Michelle to focus on her philanthropic side, supporting and raising funds and awareness for different charities every month.
Mmabatho Sikhakhane
Nadia Steenkamp
Nadine van Schalkwyk
Strategic Platforms Coordinator at South African Tourism Event Planner
Sales Manager at Mauritius Incentive Connection Service Provider
Operations Manager at Tourvest Incentives Meetings & Events Event Planner
Mmabatho has a key role managing South African Tourism’s international platforms. She deals with all the stand-sharer requirements, ensuring they understand the opportunities, the deliverables, managing expectations, prompting them for signage requirements, diary commitments, etc. Often, Mmabatho is dealing with over 30 individual stand-sharers per show, and does not miss a beat, even under immense pressure. Attending a tradeshow is a smooth and seamless experience for any one of South African Tourism’s stakeholders and Mmabatho sees to absolute professional standards being met. She displays strong qualities in leadership, innovation, integrity and maintains allimportant relationships with her clients as well as with South African Tourism and at a national level, the Department of Tourism. This year, Mmabatho has taken on all the leisure trade platforms as well as the MICE tradeshows on behalf of South African Tourism, and they have all been outstanding successes.
14 • MEETINGS l JULY/AUGUST 2018
Nadia has had extensive and broad-ranging experience throughout the 12 years she has worked in the travel and tourism industry, covering everything from hotels to aviation and car rental. Before joining Mauritius Incentive Connection (MIC) in May 2017, she was a sales, customer relations and transport manager for Club Med for just over three years. Nadia’s efforts are said to have uplifted the MIC profile within the market, which is gaining rapid traction with Nadia’s active approach and, as a result, has managed the confirmation of 12 groups in the last 12 months. Nadia is noted as being exemplary as a professional and strives to be known for her positive manner. Nadia is a natural mentor and supports and nurtures up-and-coming industry and event professionals by upskilling them on how to successfully handle and manage groups from the South African market. She also hugely contributes to the number of passengers being sent to Mauritius and enjoys sharing her island experiences with everyone with great passion and pride.
Nadine understands the intricate details and challenges of growing incentives and the MICE industry as a whole. She has played a key role in her company’s success in the market over the past four years, with her service excellence and dedication to driving and motivating her business unit. Tourvest Destination Management is a well-established part of Tourvest Integrated Services, which specialises in inbound as well as incentive travel, sports tourism and tourism event management. It is Nadine’s duty to ensure clients’ expectations of the team are met with the highest standard of service delivery. With incredible deadlines faced by the team, Nadine manages to motivate and mentor every team member to work together to extract the greatest abilities from the team, who follow her by example. Nadine’s clients are at absolute ease working with her, as they know not to worry about any logistics or management issues; she is a supplier of choice for Tourvest’s clients.
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