A pioneer of the South African commercial television industry, Irene Markantonis founded many of the affiliations, professional organizations and structures which support the industry today. These include the Commercial Producers Association of SA, which represents top accredited commercial production houses that specialize in servicing the advertising industry; the Independent Producers Organization of South Africa, launched to promote and protect the needs and interests of all South African Producers in the industry, Women in Film developed into Women of the Sun - a network aiming to facilitate collaboration between filmmakers and increase access to information and resources, promote African Films, and encourage African People to tell their stories and the National Television and Video Association, which facilitates referrals and work opportunities, provides a code of ethics and offers guidance in respect of industry standards. Most recently Irene served as Broadcast Operations Manager for the African Broadcast Network, a pan African satellite network, based in Johannesburg , South Africa . There she was responsible for all areas of the network's daily satellite feeds into ABN 's sub-Saharan territories, as well as the integration and assembly of the networks daily broadcast playout list. Prior to this Irene served as full time consultant on matters of distribution, brand management and new project development for the African Barter Company, a Johannesburg-based distributor of television programs. Irene's career encompasses tenures as a film editor and director of documentaries and features as well as a highly successful tenure producing commercials for television. During her years as Executive Producer and Director of Television and Radio Production for several international advertising agencies, she worked with many of the world's leading commercial directors on such global brands as Revlon, Standard Bank and Unilever.