HMPG secures top-drawer CEO.

She will succeed Gert Steyn, the new SAMA General Manager, who over the past two years, both before and during his current tenure, revitalised HMPG, the country's leading medical publishing group, by taking it from a net loss-making enterprise to a thriving, financially sound, technologically relevant and income-diverse platform. Kikaya will use this springboard to apply her unique combination of academic publishing experience, global policy development and practical implementation skills (seemingly tailor-made for her new job). With 14 years' experience in public health, she has specialised in multisectoral public-private relationship building in challenging environments, been intimately involved in helping lay the groundwork for SA's national health system reforms, coordinated regional country planning to discuss tuberculosis (TB) in the mining sector, and organised community participation in health systems-strengthening initiatives. She is also the inaugural editor of HMPG's latest journal title, Strengthening Health Systems, an exciting new international open-access journal and publishing support resource for developing countries, launched in July last year. Kikaya will bring rare hands-on experience to shaping the texture and content of HMPG's 12 journals, of which SAMJ is the flagship. While a consultant to the (2013/14), she designed and successfully implemented a revenue and administrative efficiency-boosting programme for Gauteng's main referral hospitals and supported the drafting of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Declaration on TB in the Mining Sector. She provided technical guidance for a regional project to establish minimum standards for national policies on the management of paediatric HIV, TB and malaria treatment protocols in SADC member states, and finalised a mid-term review and various donor reports for the Lesotho Country Office of UNICEF. She has more than 50 publications in scientific journals, with a further 50 editorial contributions to The Lancet (most as the main leader writer). Her publishing and media experience include a year as part-time Managing Editor of Fluent in French and English and holder of dual South African-British citizenship, she holds a BSc with joint honors in Physiology and Pharmacology from University College London. Kikaya's vision for HMPG is to put the needs of SA's scientists and health practitioners at centre stage by transforming the company into a diverse provider of publishing and educational services to support academic enquiry, knowledge exchange and professional development across the region. She explains that academic publishing was first established to facilitate the exchange of new knowledge between scientists and investigators, usually in the context of learned …