Appointment of Andréa Campbell as ITA spokesperson to put women, their voices in the ICT sector centre stage

Andréa Campbell.

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The Board of South Africa’s ICT sector industry body, the Information Technology Association of South Africa (ITA), has appointed the institution's current Financial Director Andréa Campbell as the association’s spokesperson last week.

Campbell is the commercial attorney for Microsoft South Africa and her appointment came as the world celebrated International Women’s Day. The global day celebrates the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women.

Commenting about her appointment, Campbell said that women remained underrepresented in the ICT field and the ITA is committed to understanding how we as an industry body can contribute to attracting and retaining women in the ICT industry where a shortage of skills (and more specifically, a shortage of skills in respect of women) is envisaged in the near future. "The demand for ICT personnel with the right skills is increasing and we need to actively drive and promote the participation and advancement of women in digital careers and encourage and stimulate the interest of women to engage in ICT-related studies,” comments Campbell.

She referred to a recent article in the Mail & Guardian that suggested that “COVID-19 has disrupted labour markets around the world and that women have borne the brunt of unemployment and, as a result, progress for women in the workplace could be back to 2017”, and added that in light of this, the ITA is actively partnering with organisations such as Microsoft and government around various initiatives, such as mentorship opportunities as well as programmes such as Digigirlz focusing on the advancement of young women and girls in ICT,” she says.

ITA remains committed to creating business and investment opportunities for SMEs amid COVID-19, as the future of work has changed and the way the world fundamentally does business has changed. The ITA skills committee will be implementing, together with its member partners such as HP, Microsoft, NetCampus, IBM and Cisco among others, programmes with a focus on tools and resources to assist SMEs in bridging the digital divide as well as preparing them with future skills required. “We want to impart soft skills, assisting entrepreneurs to grow their businesses in the ICT space,” says Campbell.

ITA Board Chairman Thabo Mofokeng said Campbell has been a core member of the ITA leadership who understands how the association works, has represented the ITA on numerous platforms and has diligently served the ITA, demonstrating her commitment to its development. "Accordingly, she is best positioned to articulate ITA communication with the various stakeholders," says Mofokeng.

Over and above working as the commercial attorney for Microsoft Corporate, External and Legal Affairs supporting South Africa and the Middle East subsidiaries, she also serves as the Treasurer of the SA Women in ICT Forum (SAWIICT Forum) of which Department of Communications and Digital Technologies Deputy Minister Pinky Kekana is the patron. She has over 13 years' experience in corporate law, financial services, investment banking and the telecommunications industry, which she gained by working and consulting for top tier banks and financial service institutions and ICT companies. These include Investec, ABSA Wealth and Capital, Alexander Forbes, Investment Solutions and TSS Capital, MTN and Microsoft.