Bryan Pearson – Chair, Penplusbytes Board

At its recently held meeting, Penplusbytes Board of Directors, has elected Mr. Bryan Pearson, an international publisher to steer the affairs of the organisation as board chair for a period of 4 years, he will be ably assisted by Mrs. Charity Binka as vice board chair.

Elated by his election, Mr. Pearson thanked Dr. Kwabena Riverson, his predecessor, the inaugural chair of the board for 4 years, for the leadership and strategic direction he provided for the organisation during its fledging growth. Mr. Pearson said “Penplusbytes is at a critical stage in its organisational life. My vision is to drive its Pan-Africa growth by establishing offices and partnerships in key African countries to ensure Penplusbytes can provide more services to its growing international network of members”.

Penplusbytes’ new chair, Mr. Bryan Pearson is also the MD of FSG Communications Ltd, publisher of Africa Health Journal (www.africa-health.com) since 1978; and MD of Asempa Limited, publisher of the 55 year-old Africa Confidential Newsletter (www.africa- confidential.com). He is also the MD of the Afrocet group of companies in Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya, which has become a leading deliverer of conferences, exhibitions and management training within the region. He is a leading observer on Nigeria, where he has spent a considerable part of his life.

Charity Binka the newly elected Vice Chair of Penplusbytes,  is a top journalist and a gender studies lecturer at Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), where she served as the Manager of the GIMPA Gender Development and Resource Centre between 2009 to 2012. She is the Executive Director of Women, Media and Change (WOMEC) and African Media and Malaria Research Network (AMMREN) where she serves as the Executive Secretary. Charity rose to the rank of Editor-in-Chief at the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation in Accra where she worked for 18 years. Charity has done several presentations on gender and media issues and has covered several international conferences

All the other Board Members reiterated their commitment to support the new board leadership to ensure Penplusbytes mission and vision is achieved. They are Ethan Zuckerman (Director – MIT Center for Civic Media); Kwami Ahiabenu (President of Penplusbytes); Dan Gillmor (Director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University); Kofi Mangesi (Director and Co-Founder Penplusbytes); Nnenna Nwakanma, (Africa Regional Coordinator for Alliance for Affordable Internet project), Dr. Joseph Siegle, (Director of Research at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies) and Andrew Kwesi Kafe, (Board Secretary).

Established on 18th July 2001, Penplusbytes is a leader in driving the use of new digital technologies to enable good governance and transparency, supporting good governance of oil, gas and mining (extractives sector) resources and revenues and driving innovations in quality journalism through the use of new media. Over its thirteen years of existence, Penplusbytes has grown into a large network of over 1,000 members in 40 countries across the globe. The African Elections Project (covered 13 elections in Africa), the Oil and Gas project ran in Ghana, Uganda, Liberia and Tanzania. The Citizens’ Budget for Ghana, which connects citizens to Parliament and supporting the Civil Society Platform on IMF bailout are some of the key initiatives the organisation is providing leadership in.