Vincent John Maher is the head of Digital Enablement at Multichoice. Maher was the Chief Innovation Officer at Kagiso Media and the Chief Product Officer at Mxit, the mobile social network. Maher joined Mxit in October 2012 when the company acquired mobile community startup Motribe Mobile Networks, of which Maher was the CTO and co-founder. Previously he was the portfolio manager for social media at Vodacom, a South Africanmobile telecommunications operator. Previously he was the strategist at the Mail & Guardian Online, in Johannesburg, South Africa and the co-founder of the political blog Thought Leader and blog aggregator Amatomu.com. After obtaining a B. Journ degree from Rhodes University, Maher started his career in 1997 at VWV Interactive, the then leading South African web development company. He pioneered use of several technologies on the South African web, including early versions of Macromedia Flash. During his tenure at VWV, Maher was a co-founder of Slime.co.za, a local take on "The Onion". After leaving VWV in 1999, Maher went on to found Digital Commerce with South African Venture Capitalist, Marthinus Strydom, a dedicated MacromediaColdFusion development house. In early 2004, Maher returned to Grahamstown as the director of the New Media Lab, part of the Journalism School at Rhodes University. In December 2006 Maher was appointed as a strategist at the Mail & Guardian Online, and wrote columns for Enjin Magazine and GEAR Magazine. His work at the Mail & Guardian Online was fruitful, with the launch of the News in Photos web site and Amatomu.com, a South African blog aggregator, Amagama.com and ThoughtLeader.co.za. During this time Maher won the for Innovative Use of New Media in September 2007 and it was shortlisted for the IT Personality of the Year Award. In June 2008 Maher joined Vodacom to manage their social networking portfolio. In August2011 Maher and Haralambous launched Motribe, a mobile community-building platform and relocated to Cape Town, South Africa. Motribe was acquired by Mxit in October 2012 and, since then, Maher has been managing product strategy and marketing at the South African mobile social network.
