Ruxandra Obreja
DRM Consortium Chairman And President DRM Association
Ruxandra Obreja has been the DRM Chairman since 2008 being last re-elected in April 2016.Previously she was the Controller of Business Development for the BBC World Service focusing on building special relationships with the business communities around the globe. Ruxandra first joined the BBC in 1985 as a radio producer and presenter and was appointed Head of the BBC Romanian Service in 1990. In 1997 Ruxandra was appointed Editor for the BBC European region and later became a Commissioning Editor with BBC English Networks and News. In her career as radio and television journalist Ruxandra has produced high quality and acclaimed programmes, interviews and reports. In 2009 she was elected vice-chairman of the EBU international broadcasters’ group.In March 2008 Ruxandra was first elected Chairman of the DRM Consortium with the avowed aim of ensuring that the various stakeholders work towards the same goal: the global and mass scale take up of the DRM standard. Since then Ruxandra has promoted, and presented DRM and digital radio at all major specialised events across the world while her articles and blogs have been published in key publications devoted to digital media.
Alexander Zink
Vice President DRM Association, Vice Chairman And Treasurer DRM Consortium
Since 2000, Dipl.-Ing. Alexander Zink, MBA, works at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits (Erlangen, Germany, www.iis.fraunhofer.de/drm) as vice group leader for the work group ‘Broadcast Applications’. In 2001 he started as project manager for the professional broadcast encoder “Fraunhofer DRM, DAB ContentServer™”. Since 2002 he is project director of Journaline, an interactive text based information system for digital radio. In addition he works in the fields of AudioServers, software defined radio, and transmission protocols.
Simon Keens
Vice Chairman DRM Consortium
Dr. Simon Keens studied as a physicist before leaving academia for business. Joining Ampegon in Switzerland in 2014, Simon specialized in shortwave transmission systems for long range broadcasting, as well as dealing with mediumwave transmitters, which led to an interest in improving AM broadcasting quality. Simon became active supporting the DRM Consortium from 2016, and was elected vice-chairman of the consortium in 2020. Representing both the DRM Consortium and Ampegon, Simon has authored numerous publications about the benefits of DRM, made key-note presentations at international conferences and exhibitions, and worked to support the promotion of DRM broadcasting around the world.
Johannes von Weyssenhoff
DRM Technical Committee Chair
DRM has been part of Johannes’ professional life for 23 years, primarily with his company STARWAVES, which has been developing several DRM receivers solutions such as the world’s first DRM-DAB multi-standard radio in 2004, the automotive aftermarket CarBox in 2006, or the recent DRM receiver with a built-in WiFi hotspot for streaming DRM audio and media content (as part of the DRM Consortium’s Distant Education project). And the work on new prototype receivers continues.
As DRM stands out as one of the few technologies capable of bridging the digital divide in underprivileged communities, Johannes was firsthand involved with Africa’s inaugural DRM trial in the FM Band, which he conducted with a community radio station in Johannesburg. This trial, along with its subsequent report listed by ITU, laid the groundwork for the South Africa’s broadcast regulations on digital radio, and the adoption of the full DRM standard, including in the FM-Band.
Johannes has broad technical know-how and hands-on experience with DRM and digital radio generally. He is known for his substantial work history within the broadcast technology sector, such as working for the South African public broadcaster SABC or the signal distributer in the country, Sentech, as well as implementing Digital Radio DRM for infotainment systems in the German automotive industry.
Radu P. Obreja
DRM Marketing Director
Radu P. Obreja is the Marketing Director of the DRM Consortium. He has extensive experience in Business Development, Marketing and PR having worked for large international companies in various industries, like Visa International and Visa Europe, where he also held the position of Vice-President. Radu Obreja is a member of the DRM Steering Board and is actively promoting the roll-out of the DRM standard in Asian, African, South American, as well as in some European countries.
Steering Board
The DRM Steering Board is composed of:
- Ruxandra Obreja – DRM
- Alexander Zink – Fraunhofer IIS
- Simon Keens - Ampegon
- Robert Webber – BBC
- Matthew Phillips – CML Micro
- Paul Firth – Encompass
- Wendell Lonergan – Nautel
- Jan Bremer – NXP
- William Kim – RF2Digital
- Albert Waal – RFmondial
- Johannes von Weyssenhoff – Starwaves
Executive Board
- DRM Chair
- Ampegon
- BBC
- CML Micro
- Encompass
- Fraunhofer IIS
- Nautel
- NXP
- RF2Digital
- RFmondial
- Starwaves
