Board of Directors
IFRRO Board of Directors
Magdalena Vinent, President
Centro Español de Derechos Reprográficos, Spain
biography
Franziska Eberhard, Vice President
ProLitteris, Switzerland
biography
Bruce Funkhouser, Vice President
Copyright Clearance Center Inc, USA
biography
Directors
Jim Alexander
Representing RRO Members
Copyright Agency Limited, Australia
biography
Jens Bammel
Representing Associate Members - publishers
International Publishers Association, Switzerland
biography
Christer Johansson
Representing RRO Members
Bonus Presskopia, Sweden
biography
Mats Lindberg
Representing Associate Members - creators
Bildkonst Upphovsrätt i Sverige, Sweden
biography
Hélène Messier
Representing RRO Members
Société québecoise de gestion collective des droits de reproduction, Canada
biography
Substitute Directors
Trond Andreassen
Representing Associate Members - creators
European Writers Council, Belgium
biography
Maureen Cavan
Representing RRO Members
Access Copyright, Canada
biography
Rainer Just
Representing RRO Members
VG Wort, Germany
biography
Michael Mabe
Representing Associate Members - publishers
International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers, The Netherlands
biography
Top
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.
Top
Trond Andreassen
Trond Andreassen is the Secretary General of the Norwegian Non-fiction Writers and Translators Association since 1997. In this function he is a member of the Board of Directors at Kopinor since 1998, the Chairman of Kopinors' Committee for International Affairs since 2001, the leader of the Norwegian PLR negotiation team on behalf of the rightholders since 2005 and a member of the Editorial & Advisory Board of INDEX on Censorship since 1990. For the period 2005-2007 he was the elected President of the European Writers' Congress. He has been elected to the IFRRO Substitute Director representing creators in 2008.
Trond is conducting projects, seminar and conferences in Europe (mainly on PLR for the last five years) and in African countries (South Africa, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Kenya) and is a writer of books and articles, mainly in the field of the sociology of literature.
Top
Jens Bammel
Jens Bammel joined the International Publishers Association as Secretary General in September 2003. In the same year he was elected Substitute Director of IFRRO, then a Director in 2006. He is also a member of the IFRRO European Group, the Membership Committee, the Copyright Industries Focus Group and the Document Delivery Group.
Jens studied German and international law in Berlin, Geneva and Heidelberg. He has worked as Head of Legal and Public Affairs at the Periodical Publishers Association, the UK magazine publishers trade association, and as Chief Executive of the Publishers Licensing Society Ltd, the UK organisation that represents book and journal publishers in collective licensing matters.
Top
Maureen Cavan
Maureen Cavan become the Executive Director of Access Copyright (The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency) in June 2004. Prior to joining Access Copyright she had a successful career in magazine publishing and was the publisher of several of Canada's top consumer magazines where she lead the development of electronic media products. During this time she also served as a member of the Board of Directors for many industry associations and charitable organizations, serving ten years on the board of ABC Canada Literacy Foundation where she was chair for two terms. Over the course of her career Maureen has developed exceptional skills in the management of complex relationships with diverse association membership.
Since joining Access Copyright Maureen has been an active member of the IFRRO. She is particularly interested and involved in the development of digital licensing opportunities supported by common technology tools and systems across the IFRRO community. Elected as IFRRO Substitute Director in October 2007, Maureen is also currently chair of the ONIX for RROs Governing Body and leads the IFRRO Working Group responsible for development of an ACAP pilot Use Case.
Top
Franziska Eberhard
Franziska Eberhard Volkart was born in Brig, Switzerland in 1960 and studied law at Zurich University. In 2002, she added an Executive MBA from the University of St. Gallen (HSG) to her existing degrees and wrote a thesis on corporate governance and the structure of large company boards of directors.
Franziska joined ProLitteris, the Swiss copyright society for literature and visual art, in 1993 and was appointed to the society's executive committee in 1996. She is Deputy Executive President of ProLitteris.
Within IFRRO she chairs the Working Group on Licensing of Newspapers and Similar Publications and is an active member of the Digital Issues Working Group and the European Group.
In the Confédération Internationale des Sociétés D'Auteurs et Compositeurs (CISAC), Franziska is an active member of CTDLV, the Dramatic, Literary and Audiovisual Works Committee, and the Literary Works Subgroup.
Top
Bruce Funkhouser
Bruce Funkhouser is the Vice-President, International & Business Operations at Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. He joined CCC in January 1998 and is responsible for CCC's International Relations, including all dealings with RROs and with IFRRO, as well as with other international organisations, such as the International DOI Foundation (IDF). In addition, he heads the Business Operations Department that is primarily responsible for distributions for all of CCC's domestic and international services, as well as for the administration of surveying and pricing for CCC's repertory services (photocopying and digital).
Prior to joining CCC, Bruce was Vice President, Programming/Licensing/Sales Support at Muzak Limited Partnership, a company that provided programmed music services to business and consumers globally. During his 10 years there, the company and its franchises grew substantially in customers, services, revenues and profits. Bruce enhanced and expanded the company's offerings from two music channels being delivered to 100,000 businesses in 1987, to delivering over 66 music channels via satellite to over 200,000 businesses as well as to one million consumers in their homes in 1997. Bruce was also responsible for the company's international, licensing, and government lobbying activities.
Bruce holds a degree in History from Princeton University. He is a member of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, and currently serves as a Board member of the International DOI (Digital Object Identifier) Foundation.
Originally elected as a Member of the IFRRO Board of Directors in 2001, Bruce is Chair of the IFRRO Digital Issues Forum. He is also a member of the IFRRO Committee for Latin America & the Caribbean, the Asia/Pacific Committee, the Legal Issues Working Group, the Digital Strategy Committee and the Digital Strategy Technical Group.
Top
Christer Johansson
Christer Johansson is Chief Executive of Bonus Presskopia, the Reproduction Rights Organisation of Sweden. He joined the organisation in September 2002 following a long career in publishing.
Christer graduated from Gothenburg University in 1975 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business and Economics. He has since undertaken further academic studies in Retail Marketing, Economic Psychology and Learning Techniques.
In 1976 he joined ICA Publishing Group as a journalist and in 1978 become editor-in-chief for 'Supermarket' magazine. As both author and publisher, Christer has been involved in many print and electronic publishing projects. With a special desire to understand the mechanism of why and how distribution systems change, in 1990 he introduced a long series of consumer behaviour studies and also wrote a book called 'Today's Consumer' (Dagens Konsument), which was later followed by frequent seminars and a monthly newsletter. In 1996 he was promoted to Executive Director for Strategic Planning and the year after to Publishing Director for the divisions of Business-to-Business Products and Electronic Publishing. He also held the position of Vice President for a subsidiary Advertising Company.
As a strategic adviser, Christer has been involved in acquisition activities in both Sweden and other Nordic Countries and has served as a board member in different companies. In 1988 he was one of the funding members of European Distribution Press Group and developed cross media and cross border products together with European colleagues.
Christer was elected Substitute Director of the IFRRO Board in 2006 and Director in 2008. He has also been a member of the IFRRO Membership Committee since 2005 and was a member of the former IFRRO Digital Issues Working Group from 2003.
Top
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 Just has been elected as IFRRO Subsitute Director in 2008.
Top
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 and Director in 2008.
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.
Top
Michael Mabe
Michael Mabe read chemistry at Oxford and did research into radiocarbon dating before becoming a scholarly publisher with OUP in 1980. Since then he has worked in various publishing, research and communications management roles for the BSI (British Standards Institution), Pergamon and Elsevier. He has recently been appointed CEO of the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM), the trade association representing and advocating the interests of scientific, technical and medical publishers, whether they be primary, secondary or new starts, large or small, commercial or not-for-profit.
Michael publishes and speaks regularly on the scholarly publishing system at international conferences and holds a number of honorary and visiting academic appointments. He is also a Director of the Management Board of the University College London Centre for Publishing.
Top
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.
Top
Magdalena Vinent
Magdalena Vinent has been the Chief Executive of CEDRO since the beginning of 2000.
She has been a member of the IFRRO Board of Directors since 2002. In November 2006 she has been elected to the position of Vice President and in October 2008 as President. She is also a member of the Digital Strategy Committee, the Equipment Levy Forum and the Copyright Industries Focus Group. She was Chair of IFRRO's Committee for Latin America and the Caribbean from 2001 to 2006 and Vice Chair of the European Group until 2008.
She has a degree in Hispanic Philology and a graduate degree in Librarianship and brings to CEDRO and IFRRO substantial professional experience from the book sector. She has occupied a range of different senior positions in public organisations, such as Head of Book Service of the Autonomous Region of Madrid, Director of the Center of Spanish Literature, Director of the Culture Department of Cervantes Institute and Deputy Director in the Book Sector at the Ministry of Culture. Her main objectives while holding these positions were to manage and promote Spanish writers and the publishing sector, as well as to raise awareness of copyright in general.
Working closely with Centro Regional para el fomento del Libro en América Latina y en el Caribe (CERLALC) and the Interamerican Publishers Group, she has cooperated in programs related to books and reading in Spain and Latin America. She has also had several articles published in professional magazines about books and libraries.
Top |