INX Committee Election 2026

Kathleen Hendrick has spent more than 20 years working in South Africa’s Internet and networking industry. Her career has included roles at NetActive, World Online/Tiscali, Internet Solutions and MWEB. Since founding Twick Consulting in 2008, she has advised various ISPs and organisations on network architecture, backbone design, peering, data centres and large-scale network migrations.

Kathleen currently works with TENET on South Africa’s National Research and Education Network. She brings a practical, hands-on perspective shaped by many years of designing, operating and troubleshooting critical networks. She would like to contribute this experience to the INX Committee and help ensure that South Africa’s Internet exchanges remain resilient, relevant and operated for the benefit of the wider Internet community.

Prenesh has been involved in ICT for over 25 years and in the internet industry for the last 20 years. He has worked at one of the leading internet service providers in the country as well one of the primary telecommunications provider in South Africa. Prenesh has worked in both Technology as well as Sales and Marketing roles , which has enabled him to amass extensive experience in the entire value chain of broadband as well as internet service provision.

He has been instrumental in driving down the cost of fixed broadband in South Africa and continues to have a keen interest in driving down the cost to communicate across the African continent. He currently consults to a number of organization in the Telecoms and ISP space.

Thomas Gould is Senior Manager, Business Development for Interconnection at Equinix, where he helps networks, cloud providers, hyperscalers, CDNs and ISPs grow through interconnection across EMEA, with a strong focus on South Africa. Over more than nine years at Equinix, from Data Centre Engineer to Business Development, he has helped build and grow peering and interconnection ecosystems across the region, working closely with IXP partners, hyperscalers and the wider networking community.

He may be relatively new to the South African landscape, but he’s keen to bring the expertise and knowledge he’s gained across other regions to help strengthen and grow it further. He’s been an active face at peering and networking events across the African region, including ZANOG, AFPIF and Equinix Engage Johannesburg, and will be at AfricaCom later this year.

He believes it’s a genuinely exciting time to be involved. South Africa sits right at the heart of the continent’s digital growth, and the rapid rise of networks, peering ecosystems and AI is making its role more important than ever — not only for the domestic market, but as a driving force behind the success of the wider African region. Strengthening South Africa’s interconnection landscape is exactly where Thomas wants to focus his energy, and he’d be proud to play a part in that journey.

William was educated in 17 places in 3 continents, eventually getting some weird non-specific Honours Engineering degree in London.

That’s just as well, because he was a Construction, Project, Electrical, Mechanical, Systems and Control & Instrumentation Engineer and that’s just in the Mining Industry.

After that, he wandered back to the Telecoms Industry and became a bit of a pain about telecoms liberalisation in Africa. Along the way, he co-founded ISOC-ZA, AfrISPA and NameSpace, and led all of them at some stage. He also made noises at ISPA, who were so glad he left that they gave him an award.

He programmed his first huge mainframe (with 36 K of hand-built Ferrite Core Memory) in 1972, built the first fibre optic network in an underground mine in 1988, started his first ISP in 1996 and did a bunch of clever stuff no one else had thought of, with lots of help from his partners, until they bailed. For his sins, he ended up being an ICASA Councillor and is now a Consultant, flogging his enormous skills (and tiny ego) on the open market.