Dr. Alastair Tempest

CEO at Ecommerce Forum Africa, South Africa

Drs Alastair Tempest is the CEO of Ecommerce Forum Africa (EFA) since 2020 and CEO of the Ecommerce Forum South Africa (EFSA) since 2016. Previously, he has served as the President of the South African Institute of Interactive Marketing and COO of the Direct Marketing Association of South Africa. And in Europe, he was the Director-General of the European Advertising Tripartite, a Director at Reader’s Digest, and Director-General of Federation of European Direct & Interactive Marketing in Brussels, Belgium.

He chaired the Self-Regulatory and Consumer Protection working party of the Global Dialogue on Ecommerce and was a member of the International Chamber of Commerce’s Marketing and Telecoms commissions for over 30 years. As CEO of the EFSA he sits as Business Unity SA’s digital trade expert on the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac)’s committee on Logistics and Trade. He wrote four Opinion Papers for the South African Institute of International Affairs in 2020-21, on ecommerce as a driving force for the AfCFTA; the digital disruption and the AfCFTA; Regional Value Chains and the AfCFTA; and Driving digital inclusion within the AfCFTA. These papers are available on the SAIIA website (https://saiia.org.za/). The three latest were co- authored. He contributed to E-Commerce in South Africa (2023, www.Juta.co.za ).

He has a BA (Hons) from the University of York, the UK, an MA from the College of Europe, Bruges and read for his PhD at the University of Ghent.