Board of Directors

IFRRO Board of Directors

Rainer Just, President
VG Wort, Germany
biography 

Hélène Messier, Vice President
Copibec, Canada
biography

Jim Alexander, Vice President
Copyright Agency, Australia
biography  

Directors 

Tracey Armstrong
Representing RRO Members
Copyright Clearance Center Inc, USA
biography

Kevin Fitzgerald
Representing RRO Members
Copyright Licensing Authority, UK
biography

Mats Lindberg
Representing Creator and Publisher Association Members - creators
Bildkonst Upphovsrätt i Sverige, Sweden
biography

Michael Mabe
Representing Creator and Publisher Association Members - publishers
International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers, The Netherlands
biography

Yngve Slettholm
Representing RRO Members
KOPINOR, Norway
biography  

Substitute Directors

Ana Maria Cabanellas
Representing Creator and Publisher Association Members - publishers
International Publishers’ Association, Switzerland
biography

Heikki Jokinen
Representing Creator and Publisher Association Members - creators
International Federation of Journalists, Belgium
biography 

Dora Makwinja
Representing RRO Members
Copyright Society of Malawi, Malawi
biography

Benoît Proot
Representing RRO Members
Reprobel, Belgium
biography

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IFRRO Directors' Resumes

In alphabetical order:

Jim Alexander

Jim Alexander is the Chief Executive of Copyright Agency Limited (CAL). Joining CAL in 2006 as General Manager, Business Services, and appointed Chief Executive in 2007, Jim has been an agent for change while preserving CAL's core business. Steering CAL towards new revenue opportunities, and with a landmark decision for CAL from the High Court of Australia recognizing surveyors' rights to payment for secondary use of their works, Jim is committed to maintaining CAL's international role.

Before joining CAL, Jim taught in Australian universities and worked in market research. It was as a research consultant that Jim established a relationship with CAL, becoming the architect of CAL's hardcopy survey sample system in 1989 – a system that has been in use in Australian schools for nearly 20 years.

Jim's current focus is on development of innovative data collection and payment methods that enable better access for users, benefit rightsholders and continue to protect copyright.

Jim seeks to continue CAL's long-standing and active participation in IFRRO to assist in developing systems for efficient worldwide collective management of digital rights. Jim Alexander has been elected to the IFRRO Board of Directors in 2008.

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Tracey Armstrong

Tracey is President and CEO of Copyright Clearance Center. With more than 20 years of experience in rights management, Tracey has been integral in CCC’s emergence as one the world’s leading providers of copyright solutions. She was a business leader in the development of CCC’s rights management software and was awarded her first patent for work on CCC’s RightSphere license management tool. Tracey chairs the IFRRO Business Models Forum. She is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and events around the world, delivering thought leadership on important digital copyright and content matters. Tracey holds an MBA from Northeastern University.

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 Ana Maria Cabanellas 

Ana Maria Cabanellas worked as a lawyer for several years and in 1971 became a partner of Editorial Heliasta (Argentina). She has been a publisher for all her professional life and has been involved with publishing policy issues for more than 20 years.

Copyright piracy was the first issue which brought Ana Maria into contact with industry associations and has stayed with her as a key issue ever since. Ana Maria has been the president of the Argentinean national publishers' association (Cámara Argentina del Libro, CAL), of the Interamerican Group of Publishers (GIE) and of the International Publishers Association (IPA), and founding member of CADRA. As Vice-President of CADRA she has attended 8 IFRRO annual gatherings and she is familiar with collecting society issues. As President of the Camara she helped Buenos Aires host an IPA Congress and is a member of the board of all these institutions and of the Fundación EI Libro (which organises the Buenos Aires Book Fair). Ana Maria has a deep understanding of publishing issues in Latin America and around the world, and an enduring belief in intellectual property and support for collecting societies.

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Kevin Fitzgerald

Kevin Fitzgerald has been CEO of the UK’s Copyright Licensing Agency for some five years. During that time CLA has included digital born works and websites in its licences, and has increased its revenue from £47m to £75m.

For some four years, Kevin has been Chair of IFRRO’s European Group. This group has been active in lobbying European Commissioners and MEPs. Most recently the group has delivered a toolkit for multi-territory licensing.

Kevin has been an active member of several other IFRRO groups and is pleased to have launched both a new concept Pilot Bilateral to make UK repertoire available to emergent RROs, to have worked with colleagues in India for the successful inclusion of all classes of rightholder in IRRO, and to be working with colleagues in China to prepare the way for licensing.

His previous career included publishing, writing and photography, which has been immensely helpful in understanding the needs of all classes of rightholders.

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Heikki Jokinen

Heikki Jokinen has been working as a freelance art critic and journalist since 1986, based in Helsinki, Finland. He holds a master’s degree in political science and comparative cultural research. His articles have been published in about 120 newspapers and magazines in many countries and he has written or edited some 20 books. He has translated books and other texts from English, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and German.

As a journalist, Heikki Jokinen is specialised in culture policy, literature, visual art, authors' rights, EU and social issues. He has curated film programmes for festivals and museums in various countries and lectured at art universities in Asia, Africa, North-America and Europe.

Heikki is a member of board of Kopiosto, the Finnish RRO, since 2008. He is the Chair of the Kopiosto PLR group and member of the executive committee, as well as substitute member of the Copyright Council of the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture. In addition, Heikki is a member of authors' rights expert group and former Chair of freelance expert group of the European Federation of Journalists. He is also the former chairperson of the Finnish Critics' Association, the Finnish Reading Centre and the Finnish Comics Society. In addition, he has been Vice Chair of the council of the Finnish Union of Journalists and the Federation of Nordic Journalist. At the moment, he is the Chair of the Finnish Freelance Journalists Association.

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Rainer Just

After leaving university with the degree of Diplomkaufmann (economics and business administration), Rainer Just joined the Ernst Klett group, one of the leading educational publishers in Germany. He initially worked within the Klett group for a small publishing house, and was then responsible for the development of a private broadcasting company. In 1990 he became managing-director of the well-known publishing house of Klett-Cotta, which has a broad repertoire ranging from fiction to scientific books and journals. His responsibilities covered all departments from accounts to delivery, and brought him into contact with numerous authors, translators, editors, literary agents and publishing houses world-wide, giving him a deep appreciation of the point of view of both authors and publishers.

Rainer has been a member of the VG WORT administrative council since 1993 and of the board since 2000. In October 2007 he was appointed joint managing director of VG WORT. After the retirement of Ferdinand Melichar at the end of 2008 he will continue to hold that office jointly with Robert Staats. Rainer was elected as IFRRO Subsitute Director in 2008 and President in 2012.

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Mats Lindberg

Mats Lindberg is the Managing Director of BUS (Bildkonst Upphovsrätt i Sverig ek för), the visual artists collecting society in Sweden. He was one of the founders of the organisation in 1989 and has held the position since then. 

Mats has been a member of the IFRRO working group specifically for visual materials since he proposed its formation to the IFRRO Board in 1995.  Mats has also participated in Digital committees and in the European group and was on the IFRRO board from 1997–1998. He is currently a member of the Copyright Industry Focus Group and was elected Substitute Director to the IFRRO Board in 2006, Director in 2008 and Substitute Director in 2010.

Mats has a substantial track record of working for different interest groups, including political societies representing disabled people's interests and cultural and visual arts organisations. Mats was the President of the European Visual Artists 2000–2004 and he has also been Chief Executive for the Association of Visual Artists in Sweden (KRO).

Since 1985 Mats has represented visual artists and illustrators on the Boards of Directors of both Bonus Presskopia and Copyswede, with his particular field of expertise being cable television agreements and remuneration for private copying. Mats' educational background is in economics and he is a graduate of Stockholm University.

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Michael Mabe

Michael Mabe is the Chief Executive Officer of the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM). He has over 30 years experience of scholarly and scientific publishing. After doing research at Oxford into radiocarbon dating, he joined Oxford University Press in 1980 and has since worked in senior publishing, research and communications management roles for the British Standards Institution, Pergamon Press and Elsevier.

Michael publishes and speaks regularly on the scholarly publishing system. He is a Visiting Professor in Information Science at University College London, and a member of the Board of Visitors at the College of Communication of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA.

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Dora Makwinja

Dora is a holder of Master of Intellectual Property Law, Commerce and Technology from the Franklin Pierce Law Centre, United States of America. Before that, she graduated from the University of Malawi with Bachelor of Social Sciences Degree (Computer and Statistics). She has been working for the Copyright Society of Malawi since October 1997 to date. She is the Copyright Administrator and Executive Director for the institution. COSOMA is one of the institutions in the region that have been successful in collective management of musical rights as well as in reprography. To date COSOMA licenses public performance, broadcasting, mechanical rights in the area of music and reprographic rights. Under reprographic rights administration, COSOMA has been able to license 30 universities, colleges and technical schools and about 100 copy-shops. Based on its success story COSOMA has trained personnel from other collective management organizations from countries in the region as well as beyond. These include Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mauritius, Namibia, The Gambia and Ethiopia.

Dora has attended a good number of courses in Intellectual Property organized by WIPO and other international organizations mainly in the field of Copyright and Related Rights. She has also been engaged as a WIPO expert on Copyright and Collective Management. Besides, she is also lecturer for the Advanced Course on Copyright and Related Rights and Master of Intellectual Property program at the Africa University in Zimbabwe.

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Hélène Messier

Hélène Messier has been the Chief Executive of the Société québécoise de gestion collective des droits de reproduction (Copibe©) since 1998. Prior to joining Copibe©, Hélène Messier was the Director of Development, New Media and Copyright at the Société Radio-Canada (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). She is also the former Executive Director of the Québec Writer's Union (Uneq).

Hélène holds a degree in law and has been a member of the Québec Bar since 1983. She recently completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Public Administration at the École nationale d'administration publique of Montréal (ENAP).

Active in many IFRRO's Committee, Hélène Messier is currently a member of the Membership Committee, the Nominating Committee, the Committee for Latin America and the Caribbean and the Working Group on the Licensing of Newspapers and Similar Publications. She was elected as an IFRRO Substitute Director in 2006 and then Director the following year.

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Benoît Proot

Benoît Proot studied law at the University of Brussels (VUB). In 1983, he specialised in international law at the University of Georgia (USA). Before joining Reprobel, the Belgian reprographic rights organization, in 2007 as Managing Director, he worked during 25 years mainly as a company lawyer in various multinational companies in Belgium and abroad. After a few years, his career also encompassed human resources and general management.

Benoît is particularly interested in the evolution of reprography in the digital area and is a regular member of official Belgian advisory organs related to reprography and private copying. He is currently also involved in lobbying and campaigning in support of authors’ and publishers’ rights at Belgian and EU level, raising issues with civil servants as well as with ministers. Within IFRRO, he chairs the Equipment Levy Forum and the Public Lending Right Forum, is an active member of the European Group and also of the European Development Committee.

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Yngve Slettholm

Yngve Slettholm joined Kopinor as Executive Director in 2006. He holds a PhD from State University of New York at Buffalo and is a well-known composer. Before joining Kopinor, he taught as Assistant Professor at the Norwegian State Academy of Music, and also served 12 years as Board Director of TONO (the Norwegian music performing rights society). During the period 2001-05 Yngve was Deputy Minister (State Secretary) in the Ministry of Culture, whose responsibilities include copyright matters. 

In 2011 he was appointed by the Government to lead the Arts Council of Norway. He has additionally held several honorary posts in the field of culture. Yngve has served as Vice Chair of the IFRRO European Group since 2007. He is also member of IFRRO’s Musical Working Group and the Development Committee for Eastern Europe.

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