Alec Joannou, global CIO of Sasol, has scooped the title of Visionary CIO 2017.
His win was announced tonight at the Institute of Information Technology Professionals South Africa (IITPSA) President's Awards, held at Urban Tree in Sandton. The award was presented by the IITPSA, in association with ITWeb, the Gordon Institute of Business Science, and Gartner Africa.
Now in its 10th year, the 2016 Visionary CIO Award recognises an executive in the corporate IT environment who has demonstrated visionary leadership in applying technology to grow and transform business.
Presenting the award, last year's winner Peter Alkema, business banking CIO at First National Bank, said: "It was an honour to win the award last year. The most important thing was to carry on with the tradition of carrying that flag and professionalising the IT industry. It is awards like these that help to create the credibility of the industry. I am about to be stripped of that title, but I do that with honour."
Accepting his award, Joannou first thanked the judges for the recognition.
"Thank you to the judges. My commitment this year is to carry on with the work that was done before. I think we have to innovate the role of the CIO. As CIOs, we have to become a lot more business-oriented, we also have to become more automated. As CIOs, we should not just be cost centres.
From a skills perspective, Joannou said CIOs in SA have the opportunity to participate in the Fourth Industrial Revolution rather than just be disrupted by it.
A position of influence
A multinational with a proudly South African heritage, Sasol has 30 000 IT users spread over four continents, 400 IT employees and an additional 600 contractors through its partners - and unlike many multinationals, Sasol's CIO is still based in SA.
"This puts Sasol in the position to truly influence and make a big difference in the country," said Joannou.
Sasol has had several journeys with Joannou at the IT helm. One of them, 'Vision 2020" is about tandardising across the globe. "We reduced over 20 data centres to one in each of the major regions which resulted in three data centres. The overall transformation savings allowed us to create three new divisions that we never had: a data division, quite ahead of the time, a security division and an analytics division, created from lessons learned, into a true data analytics ecosystem."
He is now spearheading the Modern IM journey to be ready for the digital era at Sasol, and believes his passion for people has made Sasol IM a place where people strive to work at.
Tough competition
There was some stiff competition for Joannou, who competed against seven other top CIOs.
* Joe Phago, National Treasury CIO
* Mich`ele Hall, Nampak Management Services CIO
* Mothusi Lukhele, Sanlam Personal Finance CIO
* Mthoko Mncwabe, SA Post Office Group CIO
* Peter Rix, Barclays CTO & head of infrastructure services
* Sello Mmakau, Airports Company South Africa CIO
* Shalin Naidoo, Lenmed Health Group CIO
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