African communications group appointments new board member

africapractice, the international strategic communications and corporate citizenship group dedicated to supporting Africa's economic development, has recruited a new senior member of staff. David Hampshire, former Chairman and Managing Director of Diageo Africa, has joined the africapractice group as a director.

Mr Hampshire, who has worked across the African continent for the last 35 years, will offer support to locally listed companies in Johannesburg, Lagos, and Nairobi, drawing on his experience with Diageo and as a board member of a number of major listed companies in Africa, including East African Breweries Ltd, Guinness Nigeria plc and Guinness Ghana Breweries Ltd.

David began his career with the National Import Export Corporation, a Zambian parastatal. He was then Managing Director of Speciality Foods, a food and confectionary manufacturing business in Zambia. From 1981-8, he was Managing Director of Guinness Cameroun, before returning to the UK to head Guinness's (later Diageo's) operations in Africa, first as Managing Director and then as Chairman.

David successfully grew Diageo Africa's turnover to $1.5 billion during his tenure, before retiring in 2005.

africapractice Group provides investment publishing, corporate citizenship, public affairs, investor relations and corporate communications services to clients across the African continent, serviced from offices in Lagos, Nairobi, Johannesburg, Cairo and Accra. The Group clients include Barclays, Oracle, Diageo, Shell, the Canadian Government, The Coca-Cola Company, Tinapa Business Resort, and Celtel. The Group also publishes the continent's premier investment title, Africa investor, which is read by 20,000 decision-makers in Europe, North America and Africa.