Tyrone Alexander Seale has enjoyed a career of 30 years in the communications field, featuring 20 years in various roles in journalism and 10 years as a communications strategist in the public sector.
Tyrone is a writer and media strategist with international work experience and training, who commutes comfortably between team settings and generating ideas and concepts individually.
His career began in 1981 at the Cape Herald newspaper in Cape Town.
Career highlights include:
- Covering community politics for the then Cape Town weekly, Cape Herald, in the early 1980s, after being detained by security police during my matric year
- Arts, culture and entertainment reportage in the early 1990s, including representing Independent Newspapers at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival and Palme d’Or television programme competition in Switzerland in 1990
- Three-month secondment as Media Liaison Officer for the Independent Electoral Commission in the Western Cape leading up to and during the first democratic election in 1994
- Political reporting from the Parliamentary Press Gallery in 1995 and 1996
- London correspondent for Independent Newspapers 1997 and 1998
- Covering three Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings – New Zealand, Scotland and Australia – since South Africa’s return to this international body in 1995
- Interim chair of the Presidential Press Corps
- Two years as Assistant Editor and senior political and diplomacy writer at Beeld newspaper in Pretoria
- Seven years in the current affairs/reputation management portfolio at the International Marketing Council of South Africa (Brand South Africa) from 2002 to 2009; representing Brand South Africa on branding and investment missions to China and the Gulf States
- Coordinating, on behalf of GCIS, Government communication on the 2010 FIFA World Cup™; participating in South Africa’s West Africa 2010 FIFA World Cup™ Roadshow to Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana; serving on the central communications structure for the FIFA World Cup™ that brought together government and FIFA communications executives
- Coordinating the interdepartmental content and writing team of the South African government for the COP17/CMP7 United Nations Climate Change Conference in South Africa in Durban 2011.
Education
- Matriculated Spes Bona High School, Athlone, December 1980 (following two-and-half months’ detention under security legislation)
- Argus Newspapers Cadet School for Journalism (June to December 1981)
- Thomson Foundation International Print Journalism Programme (Regent’s College, London, July-September 1988)
- Young African Leaders Programme (United States), sponsored by the US Information Service, February and March, 1990)
- Independent Newspapers Senior Management Programme (partnered by the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism, 1996)
- Media Management Programme (University of Stellenbosch Business School, 2000)
- Various business short courses.