Dr Jaco Pienaar

Dr Jaco Pienaar is a knowledge management expert, thought leader, and speaker with extensive expertise in the mass media analysis space.

As the former Chief Knowledge Officer of Professional Evaluation and Research (Pty) Ltd. (PEAR), Jaco was the brains behind PEAR’s analytics methodologies. PEAR has been acquired by the Media Host group, and Jaco has moved to a group level role as Chief Communications Officer.

His work has supported marketing, communications and public relations efforts for leading multi-national companies, government and the country’s top educational institutions.

He holds a BA (Information Science) from Rand Afrikaans University, BA HONS (Information Science) Cum Laude from University of Johannesburg, MA (Information Science) from University of Johannesburg, and a PhD in Information and Knowledge Management, with a focus on intellectual capital, systems thinking, and mass media measurement. He also served as Advisory Board member for the Department of Information and Knowledge Management at the University of Johannesburg and is a member of the Golden Key International Honour Society.

Jaco’s professional career has been focused on research, systems thinking, knowledge management, intellectual capital and strategic development. His key activities centre on organisational process design, development, and implementation, knowledge management, research (end-to-end mixed methods approaches), client relationship management, and project management. He notes that media analysis and methodological design is also inherent in these spaces.

He is a regular guest speaker and lecturer on Information and Knowledge Management, and has written several thought leadership articles for industry publications.

Jaco’s role in the Media Host group is to continue building the group’s understanding of the market environment and client needs, and raising the group’s global profile as an intelligent organisation with the smartest products, biggest datasets and most extensive expertise.