The Business Continuity Institute (BCI) Southern African Development Community (SADC) Chapter yesterday awarded the outstanding contribution of business continuity professionals and organisations living in or operating in the Africa region.
Nine awards were presented during the BCI Africa Awards 2015 hosted at the Maslow Hotel in Sandton.
Now in the third year, there were eight judged categories and one public vote category during this year's awards.
The categories were Continuity and Resilience Newcomer 2015, Continuity and Resilience Consultant 2015, Continuity and Resilience Professional (Private Sector) 2015, Continuity and Resilience Professional (Public Sector) 2015, Most Effective Recovery, Continuity and Resilience Team 2015, Continuity and Resilience Provider (Service/Product) 2015, Continuity and Resilience Innovation 2015, and the public vote category - Industry Personality 2015.
Speaking during the awards ceremony, Brian Henry, chairman of the BCI (SADC Chapter), applauded all the nominees, saying "business continuity management (BCM) is a journey and not a destination".
The Continuity and Resilience Newcomer award went to Kathy Dreyer, senior consultant in the BCM service line of Risk Advisory, a division of Deloitte. The BCM division is responsible for the assessment, implementation and maintenance of the BCM lifecycle within key clients.
Dreyer is certified as a BCM practitioner by the London-based Business Continuity Institute, and she holds the grade Associate Member of the Business Continuity Institute. Entrants into this category were supposed to have been working within continuity and resilience for fewer than two years.
The Continuity and Resilience Consultant 2015 - where the judges looked for evidence of exceptional all-round skills and a broad experience in the continuity and resilience space - was scooped by Merafe Mmusi, manager for risk advisory at Deloitte & Touche.
According to the judges, Mmusi demonstrated in-depth knowledge on the relevant subject areas and helped improve organisational resilience for a client.
The BCI recognised Este Sorour, senior manager for financial risk and insurance at University of Johannesburg, with the Continuity and Resilience Professional (Public Sector). In this category, the judges were looking for an outstanding individual who has used creative and original approaches to improve overall resilience in the public sector.
Alex van Os de Man, head of group business continuity management at Ecobank Transnational, walked away with the Continuity and Resilience Professional (Private Sector) award. Judging for this category focused on how the individual used creative and original approaches in their employing organisation to improve overall resilience.
For the Most Effective Recovery award, which looked to determine if recovery solution was based on the quality of the planning, response that led to the effective recovery and the enhanced resilience level achieved as a result, the BCI awarded insurer All Life, with ITWeb presenting the award to the winner.
The Continuity and Resilience Innovation 2015 award was bestowed to the Barclays Africa BCM team while the Continuity and Resilience Team 2015 was presented to Deloitte. ContinuitySA was named Continuity and Resilience Provider (Service/Product) of the year.
Meanwhile, Louise Theunissen of Deloitte and fellow of the BCI, was honoured with the Industry Personality of the year award. Nominations for this category were individuals who have added value to the continuity and resilience industry over the past year.
All winners from the BCI Africa Awards 2015 will automatically be entered into the BCI Global Awards 2015.
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