Michael Levinsohn

Michael Levinsohn is a South African entrepreneur who has successfully established a number of mobile marketing businesses and financed the production of some albums by notable musicians.

History

Michael Levinsohn was born on 25 January 1962 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Michael matriculated at Potchefstroom High School for Boys in 1979. He represented his school and province (state) at both field hockey and biathlon. He also won an Inter High Schools speech competition. He completed his compulsory national service in 1981, at 1 Special Service Battalion,^[1] graduating as a 2nd Lieutenant and attended the University of the Witwatersrand for three years, where he read for a law degree.

Entrepreneurship

Between 1988 and 2005 he co-founded a number of businesses including Kismet Marketing (Pty) Ltd., Atlantic Finance & Investment Holdings (Pty) Ltd., and Digital Vouchers (Pty) Ltd. He was also a director of various companies listed on the JSE Securities Exchange including Lanchem Ltd., Ventel Ltd., and Integrated Consumer Products Ltd. He was a director of AIMMS Co. Ltd.,^[2] the leading Mobile phone based CRM service provider in Korea. In March 2008, USA based Sovereign Wealth Corp acquired all of the issued and outstanding shares in Digital Vouchers (Pty) Ltd, a business Michael founded in 2003, in an all share exchange agreement. He was subsequently appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of Sovereign Wealth Corp. which was renamed Lenco Mobile Inc.^[3]

Michael co-founded Webworks (Pty) Ltd., the company which in 1998 developed the smart card based Infinity CRM program, now the largest privately owned CRM and loyalty program in South Africa, with 1.2 million cardholders. Infinity's technology was recognized internationally as leading edge at the time. Infinity was invited to become a partner in MasterCard's international vendor program in 2002. Infinity was also voted the leading independent loyalty program in South Africa in 2002 in an independent study carried out by World Wide Worx (Pty) Ltd.^[4]

Michael is the Managing Director of Sterling Trust (Pty) Ltd,^[5] a company he co-founded in 1985. Sterling Trust (Pty) Ltd has advised many South African companies on mergers and acquisitions in the technology, light engineering and financial services sectors. He is also a director of 121 Marketing (Pty) Ltd., a strategic marketing company that focuses on the Customer Relationship Management and loyalty industries. Levinsohn became the CEO of Mobicom Corporation on 15 January 2008. He was also formerly responsible for the investments of the South African National Civics Organisation.^[6] In January 2009 he was responsible for establishing Lenco Mobile Inc., in the United States of America. Lenco Mobile Inc. provides a range of mobile marketing solutions to brand owners internationally.

In July 2011, he published a white paper entitled: Ten Trends That Will affect The Future Of Mobile Marketing^[7] In 2011, he was a committee member of the Mobile Marketing Association's panel on permission based mobile marketing. In 2012, he was appointed to co-chair the Mobile Marketing Association's Marketing Best Practices for Messaging committee, which published a white paper in March 2014.^[8]

In December 2011, Lenco Mobile Inc, merged with iLoop Mobile Inc., a leading mobile marketing solutions company, based in Seattle WA. The merged entity, Archer Mobile^[9] is considered a world leader in mobile marketing and multimedia messaging technology, and has offices in Seattle, Atlanta, Newport Beach, Chicago, Johannesburg, Mexico City, Singapore and Sydney. Archer's clients include Coca-Cola, Citi Bank, Starbucks, Western-Union, Skype, Xbox and Experian.

In early 2008 Michael expanded his business interests to include his passion for motor racing and he formed a partnership with Intersport Racing, a leading American Le Mans, LMP Prototype racing team to build the commercial arm of Intersport Racing. This relationship was discontinued in 2010. In 2013 he formed a new company in partnership with world-renowned sports car champion and team owner, Wayne Taylor.^[10] The new company provides mobile marketing services and solutions to the motor racing and automotive industries.^[11] He was also appointed President of Wayne Taylor Racing in January 2014, and spent a year developing the team's commercial program. In 2015, he expanded his investments in the mobile area by establishing the TORQ Group of Companies. TORQ focuses on the development of software and services for the Connected Car market. ^[12] TORQ also owns Atlanta based digital design company Artagrafik. ^[13]

Michael is an expert in Customer Relationship Management programs and strategy. A number of articles written by him about CRM and loyalty have been published by leading South African journals^[14] and he has co-authored several patents for the delivery of multimedia messages. He has also developed and been awarded a provisional patent for his innovative Mobile Phone and Internet CRM program which provides brand owners and consumers with a fully integrated mobile phone CRM program, and has co-authored patents for the delivery of MMS messages to mobile phones.

Music

In 1991, Michael co-financed the production of former Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman's album African Bach^[15] through Atlantic Finance and Investment Holdings.

In 2000, he was the Executive Producer and financier of Miriam Makeba's album Homeland,^[16] which was nominated for a Grammy Award as Best World Music Album.^[17]

Michael was also a co-owner for five years of The Blues Room,^[18] which was voted the top live music venue in Johannesburg^[19] six times in a row.

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Tuesday, April 05, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.