Interview: Len de Villiers on being a CIO

Loading player...
In this episode, Duncan McLeod interviews Len de Villiers, until recently group chief information officer at Telkom, to talk about the role of IT management in South Africa.
In the wide-ranging discussion, De Villiers talks about his career as a CIO for many of South Africans top companies, including Nedbank, First National Bank, Absa, Transaction Capital and, of course, Telkom.
He discusses how the role of the CIO has changed over the decades, the biggest challenges facing IT leadership today and what those interested in pursuing career in the field should be considering.
What is the role of a CIO today? What are the top things a good CIO brings to an organisation? What do good CIOs do inside their organisations to help the business, and what are some of the mistakes they often make? De Villiers covers all this ground – and more.
In the discussion, De Villiers, who chairs the CIO Council of South Africa, talks about the big overhaul he led of Telkom’s IT systems, why it was done and what it involved.
He also talks about what it takes to be a CIO and whether South African universities are adequately preparing youngsters for careers in IT.
It’s a great discussion. Don’t miss it!
11 Jun 2018 English South Africa Technology · Business

Other recent episodes

TCS | Herotel CEO Van Zyl Botha on beating Starlink to South Africa

Amazon’s Leo satellite constellation is coming to South Africa in 2027 through Herotel. TechCentral deputy editor Fanie van Rooyen speaks to Herotel CEO Van Zyl Botha about Evry, the brand that will sell Amazon Leo to South African homes, and about how a company with no local licence walked into…
14 Aug 22 min

Meet the CIO | Derek Wilcocks on how AI personalised Vitality

Discovery group CIO Derek Wilcocks on personalised Vitality, the limits of AI coding and why growth beats cost-cutting. Derek Wilcocks, group CIO at Discovery, says AI has finally given the group the ability to do something it has wanted to do since Vitality launched more than 25 years ago: personalise…
13 Aug 50 min

TCS | Money just became native to the internet - Steven Boykey Sidley

Steven Boykey Sidley has been a chief technology officer at a Fortune 500 company, a private equity investor, a videogame designer, a jazz musician and, for the past four years, a professor of practice at the University of Johannesburg. He is a partner at Bridge Capital, heading its futures advisory,…
12 Aug 45 min

TCS+ | How AI is turning hardware into a subscription service

For most of business history, buying technology meant owning it. Capital was set aside, servers and laptops were hauled into the building alongside the software licences, and the business then sweated those assets for as long as it practically could. In the age of AI, that logic is starting to…
6 Aug 19 min

TCS+ | iStore Business on why Apple makes sense for SMEs

For small and medium enterprises, technology must do one thing above all else: get out of the way. Unlike large corporations with dedicated IT departments, SMEs run lean – and every hour spent wrestling with systems is an hour not spent on the business itself. In this episode of TechCentral’s…
30 Jul 37 min