Cape Town Team
Alex Sudheim
Alex is the Senior Copywriting Navigator at Vega, Cape Town. He is responsible for initiating the 2nd and 3rd Year students into the dark art and uncanny craft of writing killer copy. A modern copywriter is a latter-day bard: a suave, seductive storyteller who enraptures the masses with his vivid tales of the promised Land of Brand. Alex is an award-winning copywriter, screenwriter, journalist and poet whose students at Vega have thusfar won 6 Vuka Awards; 5 Loerie Awards and 3 Pendoring Awards. He can usually be found by following the trail of broken pencils.
Carmen Schaefer
Carmen is a Visual Communications navigator at Vega. She has a Masters degree in Interactive Media Design and a BA(FA) with specialization in Information Design. She is interested in the way her students use social media in creative ways and loves typography, especially the way it is used different cultural contexts. She is passionate about teaching her students sustainable design practices.
Dr Franci Cronje
Franci is the Academic Co-Navigator of Vega Brand Communication School in Cape Town. She is also a filmmaker and artist. Passionate about Critical Studies, multimodal discourse, Border Crossing Theory with a focus on adolescent cultural identities, and the academic argument, she has recently submitted her PhD thesis at the Centre for Film and Media Studies under the supervision of Dr Arlene Archer of the University of Cape Town. She specializes in video as art medium, and her work has been shown in Ekanterinburg, Russia; Centrum voor Jonge Kunst, Gent; as well as at the "International Shorts", California State University, Chico, during 2004-5, and at the Spanierman Gallery in New York during May/June 2007.
Heine Botha
Heine is the IT Navigator at Vega, Cape Town. He is a certified Jedi Warrior of the Computer Class who can take remote control of any operating system within a 10 kilometre radius of his magical mouse. Despite being a formidable tech-fundi, in his spare time Heine likes to stay away from the world of technology and hone his equally formidable cricket and golf games.
Janey Nixon
Janey is Vega CT’s Relationship Navigator for the 3rd Year BCBC and BBM students as well as the Honours, Diploma and Photography students. How Janey manages to maintain her enviably calm disposition amidst the chaos is perhaps explained by her BA in Industrial Psychology. This, together with her Post-Graduate Diploma in Information Science, also explains her interest in all things forensic. Although Dexter himself would never in a million years discover the secret behind Janey’s world-beating Spaghetti Bolognaise.
Jan Horn
Jan is the Campus Navigator at Vega Cape Town. He has been with Varsity College in a management capacity for the past 3 years, before joining Vega, and in education for the past 17 years. His perfect day would include his wife and children, and catching a 5kg rainbow trout in the Drakensberg on a fly that he tied himself. Jan's quote to live by: "Never test the depth of the water with both feet."
Malcolm Venter
Malcolm is the Photography Navigator at Vega, Cape Town. Passionate about all aspects of photography, he is also a keen student of art history. He brings this passion to the classroom, insisting that we should be creating artists rather than just technicians. When not in the studio or the darkroom, Malcolm can be found dangling from a rock face on Table Mountain or enjoying a good book under a shady tree.
Marthinus van Loggerenberg
Marthinus is the Field Navigator for Business Leadership. Wearing the magical hats of where business meets brands and where innovation meets leadership, he fulfils his passion in the field of academic navigation. Marthinus completed a B Com (Law) with major Statistics (UP), Post Grad in Integrated Marketing Communications (AAA) and MBA cum laude (US) and is currently reading for his PhD. He also completed his AMASA certification in 2001, is a member of the Golden Key Society and has published in the Journal of Digital Marketing in 2010. He has spent several years in the industry as anything from Marketing and Advertising Manager for major brands to Brand Strategist. His main interest in the world of brand communications is exploring the socio-cultural and psychological influence of brands relating to the brand narrative and word-of-mouth as result.
Pamela Lundberg
Pamela is a Contact Navigator. She has a BA Degree in Communications Management (specializing in Creative Brand Communications) and is also an ex-Vega student. If not helping worried parents about career choices for their “Creative creatures,” Pam is preaching the Vega Brand in all its glory to the masses. She is currently working toward her Honours degree in Brand Leadership as she strives to be the next Brand guru. She is always around to give advice and is usually responsible for the smell of microwave popcorn around Campus.
Richard Kilpert
Richard’s creative development class is called Lost & Found. He has a B Fine Art degree in printmaking from Rhodes and has studied interactive digital media at Wits. He has a background in social development work, having been director of the Ilitha Arts Education Project (Eastern Cape) and the Imagination Lab (Gauteng). He loves traditional printmaking and kinetic art machines, has exhibited in Paris, Liverpool and Nieu-Bethesda and declared March 23rd “Jour International des Popcorn”.
Rigard Janse van RensburgRigard is a Contact Navigator at Vega Cape Town and joined the team in February 2010. He holds a BCOM degree in Marketing Management from UNISA and completed a post graduate specialisation in Media Management at the AAA School of Advertising. Prior to joining Vega, Rigard started his career at FNB where he was responsible for sales and marketing in the acquisition division while managing a portfolio of private and commercial clients. Currently he is studying towards a BA Honours degree in Brand Leadership as a part-time student at Vega. He is a passionate brand ambassador for Vega and strives to live the brand and infuse wisdomwithmagic into everything he does. In his spare time he is a keen portrait and wedding photographer.
Sibusiso Mbele
Sibusiso (Sibs) has been working as a Frontline Navigator at Vega Cape Town since 2007, during his spare time he enjoys spending time with his family and friends. His interests/hobbies are watching WWF RAW/ Smackdown, Soccer and Cricket.
Thys de Beer
Thys de Beer is the Brand Strategy Navigator and Head of the Honours in Brand Leadership-degree at Vega Cape Town. He is an admitted Advocate (non-practising) and holds a B.Proc. degree from the University of Johannesburg, an LLB degree from the University of Pretoria and a Post-graduate Diploma in Brand Contact Management from Vega and is currently investigating Design Thinking and the construction of Brand Identity on (hopefully) a doctorate level.
Thys has a keen interest in human expression and understanding the human condition and spent 7 years in the advertising industry as a strategic planner with global agencies such as DRAFTFCB and JWT. Thys regularly consults on Brand- and Communication Strategy projects to various agencies and private clients. Thys loves film, friends, food and his 3-legged cat, Piet.
Tristan Bunn
Tristan is fascinated with all things digital, design, and open-source. Since embarking on his design career almost a decade ago, he has worked extensively in both the aesthetic and more technical aspects of his craft, eventually ending up as Digital Media Navigator at Vega in 2011.