Maik Kobald Email & Phone Number

Cape Town Area, South Africa

Red Room Gallery is borne out of my passion for connecting art enthusiasts from all around the world to exceptional contemporary African art. I’ve learned it’s not easy to know whether you’re purchasing a truly valuable piece and I have born the brunt of this. Years of art exploration and buying has equipped me with extensive knowledge in the art market.Founded in 2012, Red Room gallery is a pioneering artistic platform upon which unique, contemporary African art is exposed to the greater international art market. The gallery seeks to source and display African works focusing primarily on artists from South Africa, providing them with a means to market and profit from their talent and personal brand. The art on show is anything but the clichéd generic trinkets one finds on the side of the road, but alluring representations of the realities of African people. It is not African art through a Western lens, but African art seen through African eyes. Our work also prioritises artist development through the upliftment and promotion of an individual’s own exclusive brand. We provide opportunities for international exhibitions in Europe and the Middle East, where the demand for contemporary African art is highest, and establish sustainable business relationships with those artists whom we prize and support. Through this, we hope to expose the world to continental art that lives and breathes artistic life, and tells the stories of Africans both at war and at peace with their past. We seek to prove that contemporary African art need not be a mere representation of a continent seemingly succumbing to Western fetish. Red Room Gallery strives to call and unite black African artists to create a market for their stories yet unheard. As the saying goes, ‘umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu’, a person is a person because of other people.

Johannnesburg

• Responsible for the execution of lead solutions in line with the strategic direction of the Feature Phones and Innovation phone category across the business and all cross functions. • Driving the range of mobile phones from introduction into sales forecasting, market launch and lifecycle performance. • Establishing the MEA category strategy to best deliver business objectives including Marketing, Channel, and Sales drivers. • Manage key deliverables like financial metrics (volume, value, gross margin) for focus products, program metrics (Brand & marketing metrics, commercial, channel, operator engagement), active user targets for the solution, mid- and short-term portfolio management. • Constantly engage with Local Sales Unit Marketing Heads, Portfolio Managers and Solutions Marketing Managers across Middle East & Africa to provide guidance on solution roll out as well as to incorporate market understanding into the solution work.

City Of Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa

• Responsible for the solution leadership of the Nokia music services e.g. “Comes with Music” and the relevant device range.• Driving the MEA business performance for Entertainment devices and services, including pricing and positioning inputs as part of overall solution plans. • Compiling of the MEA consumer value proposition, incorporating market understanding and deploying to the cross-functional team and Local Sales Units. • Leading the execution of Go-To-Market programs within MEA involving all global stakeholders. • Supporting sell-in activities with key customers and communications in the region.• Post launch business tracking, ensuring full visibility of performance vs. targets ongoing. • Accountable for business deliverables vs. targets set during planning phase. • Providing market specific portfolio input to global theme leads and long-term portfolio planning.

City Of Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa

• Leading a multi-location and multicultural Product Management team for Sub Saharan Africa, in Johannesburg, South Africa.• Responsible for the Product Management of the Nokia device portfolio.• Ensuring device and service function as perfect solution. • Aligning within all cross-functional entities to achieve the MEA business targets and time to market.• Mid and long-range portfolio planning. • Product lifecycle management.

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

• Mobile phone short- and long-term portfolio planning for the MEA region.• Optimizing product positioning with local sales units and countries. • Go-To-Market planning and execution.• Product lifecycle management.• Responsible for all product communication materials and execution of training for area marketing, operators, sales and business development. • The Nokia 6300 as outstanding example, creating huge market pull and exceeding volume forecasts, achieving 40% GM contribution in 2007.

Ulm, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

• Global Product Manager for Nokia 6131, Nokia 3220, leading the design and concept phase, product development as well as the Go-To-Market planning and Product Lifecycle management. • Patent: Portable electronic apparatus with controlled light sources. US 7,245,228 · Issued Jul 17, 2007• Management of the concept phase of the Nokia 6020 and Nokia 6021.• Project Team Leader for location-based services, driving the implementation with North American operators. As a result, several patents have been filed for Nokia.• Concept development of Nokia telematics units.• Nokia representative for European Community project ITSWAP (Intelligent Transport Services) with the aim to provide innovative services to mobile users.

Ulm, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

Leading team for concepting of Location Based Services. Evaluation of technologies for identifying locations of mobile phones. Project management of end-to-end implementation of chosen technology into mobile phone devices.

Tokyo, Japan

• Project Manager for the implementation of the Mercedes-Benz Emergency-Call and roadside assistance service center in Tokyo/Japan.• Managing the customer interface to Panasonic, Toshiba and NTT Docomo.

Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

Bid proposal management of T-Mobile Telematics service center.Concept development for GPS based telematics services.Managing test specification and execution during implementation phase till market introduction and customer approval.

Brussels, Brussels Region, Belgium

Delegate for European Community Project Quartet Plus demonstrating the benefits of the integrated urban transport environments. Project management for the implementation of a web based Multimodal Route Guidance System.

Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

Concept development of telematics services such as navigation systems, emergency call services and anti theft systems. Evaluation of available technologies for implementation in automobiles.