James van der Hoven
CEO at Vane
My role as business owner at Vane is to ensure that I lead a team who are capable of implementing the best performing ecommerce solutions for our clients and to ensure the smooth integration and automation of their business processes. Since 2011 Vane has built up a distributed team of developers and concentrate on ecommerce platforms using WooCommerce and Magento.
Jeff Pearce
Theme Wrangler at Automattic
Most know me as Jeffikus. I’m a theme wrangler at Automattic.com where I lead development on the Canvas WordPress theme and Flexslider jQuery slider library.
Dwain Maralack
Code Wrangler at Automattic
Dwain Maralack is a developer living in Ceres, South Africa. On a daily basis he works on any one of 120 WooCommerce Extensions. Part of his day to day activities is moving in between the code base enjoys working on integrations and interacting with API’s. When not working he enjoys time off with his wife and spending time with family.
Daine Mawer
Senior WordPress Developer at 24.com Open Source Team
A designer, dynamic trainer, Envato Tutsplus author, and developer, Daine is a mover and shaker in the world of education and web development. Having achieved his B.A at Vega: School of Brand Leadership in 2009, Daine went on to take the web development industry by storm having worked for a number of Cape Towns most prized media and advertising agencies and companies in both freelance and permanent capacities. Daine has been a dedicated part of the world of web development, having already made a considerable contribution in South Africa. He is currently based at 24.com, subdivision of Media24 (Naspers) where he contributes to the Open Source team.
Hugh Lashbrooke
Community Sentinel at Automattic
Hugh has been working with WordPress for a good few years now and has totally fallen in love with it. At Automattic he works on the WordPress community team where he assists and supports WordPress community organisers from all over the world.
Danielle Eriksen
Front-end Developer and Designer at New Media Labs
Danielle Eriksen; artist and graphic designer turned web developer, with a long and winding path in-between… Currently growing her skills as a front-ender with the New Media Labs team. Loves learning new things and sharing with others. When not gardening, playing with cats or puzzling out the next problem that needs solving, she dedicates her time and energy to introducing newcomers to Ruby on Rails with the RailsBridge Cape town group, and helps teach and encourage young girls in Tech as part of Code 4 CT.
Bradley Baumann
Owner of Baumidesign
Bradley studied Multimedia and Web Design at CPUT then began freelancing. He started his own business in 2014, and since then has branched out into providing more services for clients, such as SEO, social media marketing, hosting, web development and monthly maintenance. He is also involved in voluntary work, free Bible education with jw.org.
Steve Barnett
Code mentor at Project codeX and Freelance Front-end Developer and UX Person
Steve Barnett works as a code mentor at Project codeX, and as a freelance Front-end developer and User Experience person. He loves the One Web and applying User-Centered Design principles to Front-end Development (by building with Progressive Enhancement). He’s a bit addicted to meetups: you can usually find him helping out with RailsBridge Cape Town, Cape Town Front-End Developers, or sitting in the audience at something vaguely techy. If he’s not there, he’s probably crouched in an awkward position in front of something funny-looking, taking pictures of it. You can find him on Twitter as @maxbarners, on GitHub as SteveBarnett, and on his own site Naga (which really, really, needs a redesign) as, erm, himself.
Jonathan Bossenger
Self employed WordPress plugin and child theme developer
In 2015 Jonathan attended his first WordCamp. The experience was so great that he decided to quit his day job as a Senior PHP Developer and focus his future career on developing with WordPress. He also promised himself he would be a speaker at the next WordCamp. (so far, so good). He currently is a big fan of the Divi theme and makes a living selling extension plugins and child themes for Divi. With a passion for writing and sharing knowledge he also blogs about WordPress and Divi related development at jonathanbossenger.com. He lives in Durbanville with his wife and 2 boys. In his spare time you will find him training and teaching the art of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu or couch jumping at tech conferences.
Konstantin Obenland
Developer at Automattic
Konstantin is a WordPress aficionado, and Core Developer based in Southern California. You might remember him from projects like WordPress 4.3 or the new WordPress.org Theme Directory. At Automattic he’s is part of a team that contributes to Core and WordPress.org full time. He enjoys bourbons, craft beers, and good food — sometimes so much that he blogs about it.
Jemima Baumann
Social Media Marketing and Content Manager for Baumidesign
I have lived in South Africa for four+ years, originally from Adelaide, Australia. My husband is a web developer, and I decided to quit my previous job to help him build his existing business, because it was much more fun than what I was doing! I have been working with him in Baumidesign now for the last six months.
Job Thomas
WooCommerce Education Lead at Automattic
Job Thomas (1984) is a Belgian living in Cape Town with a passion for education, training and WordPress, trying to combine the three at Automattic. In his spare time he runs an e-zine called CULTURESHOCK, and enjoys movies, music, photography, reading, travelling, good food and (Belgian) beer.
Chris Muller
Co-founder at Pango, Lead developer at AdvantageLearn.com
Born & bred in Durban, Chris has a mixed history academically including Applied Maths & Economics. Soon after moving to Cape Town he made a career shift and joined a startup – Advantage Learn. Driven by necessity he quickly found a passion in WordPress and has spent the last 2.5 years learning and developing with WP. In order to fuel that passion he co-founded Pango, a WP development house, in late 2015. Apart from coding, Chris is passionate about trail/road running, traveling, adventure, continuous learning and meeting people.
Richard Miles
Code @ Nona Creative
Richard is a WordPress Developer and javascript tinkerer from Cape Town. He is passionate about learning and implementing new technology in the world of API’s, web and mobile application development. Richard is also a BMUS graduate who enjoys gaming, galavanting around Cape Town, craft beer and the occasional hacky sack game.
Seagyn Davis
Head Maker of Things at Digital Leap
Seagyn Davis is a born and bred South African that has an extreme passion for making things for himself, Digital Leap (his business) and our clients. In his spare time, he likes spending time with his beautiful wife, staying in shape and enjoying a good ol’ fashioned braai with mates.
Matty Cohen
WooCommerce Product Team Lead at Automattic
Matty heads up the WooCommerce product team at Automattic, focused on developing out the latest and greatest WooCommerce features, and extensions. In his spare time he enjoys music, guitars, startups, and working with the tech and WordPress communities in Africa, and around the world.
Rob Hope
Owner and Curator at One Page Love
Rob Hope is a South African entrepreneur passionate about One Page websites, minimalism and building rad things online. He started collecting One Page website references in 2008 and now reviews these “One Pagers” full time. With the help of WordPress, Rob grew the One Page Love website from a tiny niche idea to a leading website design inspiration resource.
Trisha Cornelius
Freelance web designer
Trisha Cornelius is a freelance web designer who discovered the joys of WordPress while living in Costa Rica between 2009 and 2011. Upon returning to South Africa, she decided rather than re-entering the legal profession she would rather focus on web design. Trisha resides in Johannesburg with her husband and son.
Leo Gopal
WordPress Human @ Nona Creative
Leo Gopal is a mix of WordPress Developer, Writer, and Poet. His passions lie in helping others see their dreams as more than just a dream; either through web development, business efficiency advice, or in just sharing. Since he uses WordPress, you can google him for more 😉
Caitlin Gevers
Acting Managing Director: Advantagelearn.com
A Durban girl with a passion for South Africa and a postgraduate degree in psychology, Caitlin is intrigued by people. She loves to figure out the way they work, learn, purchase, relate, think, and communicate. Learning business the hands on way, she joined Advantage Learn in its infancy and has been growing with it over the last three years. Outside of work Caitlin is an aspiring runner, enjoys yoga, reading and culinary delights.
Nathaniel Wagner
Co-founder at Design Lunatics
Nathaniel is young entrepreneur, driven by purpose and passion. He is a RLabs champion as well as being one of the elite members of the Legacy Programme where young people work together to facilitate positive change in their communities. Nathaniel has also formerly been one of the World Economic Forum – Global Shapers. He co-founded his first startup in 2012 and today, Nathaniel heads up a Web Design Startup – Design Lunatics.