Award winning practicing media expert with over 3 decades active broadcast years in Nigeria and
United Kingdom. Recognised as one of Nigeria’s 20 most powerful women in journalism.

An inductee of the Nigerian Hall of Fame. Broadcast media trainer who established the 1st female Academy Women Radio Centre training female journalists, Women in Radio Development (WINRAD). United Nations ambassador for women. European Union influencer to end Violence against Women and
girls in Nigeria.

Media lead and member Technical Working Committee on reviewed Gender & Equal Opportunity Bill of 2016. Member African Women Leaders Network.

Francois Retief obtained a degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Stellenbosch. After a decade of being the chief systems engineer and project manager in the development of various well-known fleet management and vehicle tracking systems, he became COO and one of the 3 founding members of iono.fm Iono FM, South Africa’s large-scale international podcasting, live streaming, and digital audio advertising platform. 

Founded in Cape Town in 2008, Iono FM is a leading African and global platform with over than 300 radio stations and audio publishers, more than 2500 podcast shows and over 120 streams broadcasting from 16 countries in more than 21 languages.  In addition, Iono FM technology is licenced to SharpStream, our affiliate company in the UK, supplying services to over 400 European stations including the Bauer Media Group.

In 2023 Iono FM no had over 12 million unique South African listeners and tens of millions of global listeners on their platform from media groups including AME, Kagiso, Media 24, Arena Holdings, Multichoice, AB Communications, The Namibian Broadcasting Corporation, Future Media Namibia and various independent commercial, community and digital radio stations and large podcasters.

As COO Francois is responsible for the day-to-day operations including the operational support department, billing, advertising, and special projects.  As a key technical and operational interface for the company he also frequently presents at conferences, provides training and advice on digital audio to various local and international broadcasters, organizations and ad agencies and serves on the IAB’s South African Digital Audio Committee.

Besides Iono FM, Francois is also a principal consultant and course presenter for an Australian company called Project Performance International, presenting training, and advising on the development of large-scale, complex technology systems, incorporating various technologies and disciplines, and steered by diverse stakeholder groups.

Outside of work he enjoys spending time with his life partner and 3 children, has a black belt in Goju Ryu karate, and enjoys trail running, hiking, scuba diving, movies and various other ‘geeky’ pursuits.

Station Manager of Highwayradio in Durban, KwaZulu Natal and a former secretary and chairperson of National Community Radio Forum. 

Francesco Diasio started working as a journalist in a community FM radio station based in Rome. In 1998, he founded a web based radio agency providing content and journalistic productions in ready to broadcast audio formats to a network of around 25 Italian independent radios.

With extensive experience and knowledge on community radio, he has been Involved as a consultant for several International NGOs in several International projects for media and civil society reinforcement in the Middle East from 2000 to 2006, DRC from 2006 to 2009, and from 2010 in Haiti, Libya, Pakistan, Tunisia, Kyrgyzstan, Mauritania, Senegal, Iraq  etc.

In 2007, he founded Med Info Radio, the first all-news satellite radio channel gathering news and supporting freedom of expression in the Mediterranean basin. He was European Coordinator of AMARC (World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters) from 2008 to 2014, since May 2014 he has covered the position of Secretary General of AMARC International. He joined the FAO Communication for Development team in 2020 as International Communication for Development specialist.

Former Star FM Broadcaster. Communication strategist with 8 years of experience in Account Management, Public Relations, Marketing, Advertising, and Sales Consultancy. Involved in concept
initiation, funding acquisition, and business development for 2 media startups in Zimbabwe. The holder of the Forty Under 40 Africa Media Award 2022 among other notable accolades over the past 3 years.