The Bookmarks, South Africa’s premier annual digital awards, has once again secured two leading international digital figureheads to lead the judging panel: Fernanda Romano, Global Creative Director for Digital and Experiential at Euro RSCG, and Chris Colborn, Chief Experience Officer at R/GA New York.

Fernanda Romano
Fernanda Romano Fernanda Romano is a prominent international digital figurehead who has held leading positions in agencies around the world, from Sao Paulo, to New York, London and Spain.

She has won numerous wards, including the illustrious Lion Grand Prix from Cannes; was named one of Ad Age’s ‘Women to watch’ in 2006, and is also a member of the Creative Social.

Chris Colborn
Chris Colborn Chris Colborn is the highly celebrated digital and experiential designer who previously worked at Byron Preiss Multimedia Company where he was instrumental in creating interface technologies for virtual entertainment and some of the earliest online game applications.

Chris joined R/GA in 1998, where he climbed the ranks to Worldwide Creative Director and oversaw creative for leading brands such as Nokia. He has recently been appointed Chief Experience Officer.
 

Local Judges

In addition to the two leading international luminaries, the Bookmarks has secured three local digital experts to judge this year’s awards.

Pete Case
Pete Case Having moved from the UK to South Africa in 2000, Pete founded and now creatively leads Gloo. Today Gloo is South Africa’s most awarded Digital Agency and has consecutively won Agency of the year in 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Pete’s personal creative credits include an impressive 32 Loeries and 2 Grand Prix in the last 4 years, as well as multiple recognition at the following international events; Cannes, Echo, The Emmy’s, Promax, D&AD, CLIOs, The New York Advertising Festival, The Design Indaba Awards, Assegai, Caples, Bookmarks and The Webby Awards.

In the last year he has been asked to judge at the following awards shows: The One Show (USA), CLIOs (USA), The Dubai Lynx (MENA), The Loeries (SA) and The Broadcast Design Awards (Europe).

JP Farinha
JP Farinha JP started his career at the JHB Stock Exchange and Deutsche Bank London where he used internet technologies to deliver globally distributed systems. From there he moved to Metropolis Transactive, an ambitious internet start-up backed by Primedia, where he provided strategic technology input and was instrumental in implementing the US-based VerticalNet technology platform in SA. Subsequently he developed an enterprise Content Management System for iafrica.com which is still in use today and joined them as IT Director eventually taking over the management of the business as Managing Director.

JP is the founder of the Online Publishers Association and served on the Executive Committee for five years from it’s inception to 2008 as Head of Measurement. In this time he set up the Nielsen//Netratings system in SA.

In 2004 JP joined MWEB as GM of MWEB Studios and with the formation of 24.com became GM and later progressed to CTO/COO and now CEO.

JP was the inaugural winner of the 2008 “Greatest Individual Contribution to New Media” Bookmarks award.

Rob Stokes
Rob Stokes Stokes founded Quirk in 1999 whilst he was nearing the end of his Marketing Honours Degree at the University of Cape Town. Today Quirk is Africa’s largest full service online marketing agency with a loyal client base that includes big names like Google, BMW and FNB.

Rob is driven by his love of technology and constant search for innovative and fresh ideas. A regular local and international speaker, Rob has entertained audiences in many countries, sharing his knowledge and expertise on a wide array of eMarketing topics. He is also the co-author of the Quirk textbook – eMarketing: the essential guide to online marketing. Licensed under the Creative Commons, the textbook is used by marketing students at universities all over the world. To download a free copy of the book, visit www.quirk.biz/emarketingtextbook.