CIO Africa August 2022 Edition

VOL 27 | ISSUE18 | august 2022 EDITION

the 2022 Fintech Summit recap

Just Do It! winner of 2021 cybersecurity specialist, Noureen Njoroge

what’s trending the latest news, technology, trends and innovations from across africa

Warren Hero We need to have difficult conversations even in tech CIO/CDO Webber Wentzel

KSHS.300 | USHS.9,000 | TSHS.6,000 | RWF.2,200 | OTHER USD.9

www.cioafrica.co | AUGUST 2022 | CIO Africa Magazine | by dx⁵ dx5 | a digital transformation community | MAY 2022 1

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Contents

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GUEST EDITOR

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the lead

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HER CHAT

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intro to dx5

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her VIBE

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the round-up

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i.t leadership

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Operational Technology Leaders Continue To Face Challenges

Conversations And People Matter; More Than Technology

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Just Do It. Noureen Njoroge

Transforming digital-driven human connection

The Mighty Sting Of The Queen Bee

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The Latest News From The Continent

A Doctor & A Coder Walk Into An H.r. Firm

thinking aloud The Dark Side Of Digital Transformation

summit round-up The Africa Fintech Summit Round-Up

hard talk Mining The New Oil

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editor’s note

One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other You must have noticed your usual magazine is not like it was a month before. This copy is the beginning of a beautiful friendship that has been years in the making – the merger between CIO Africa and The Rebel Element; that has given birth to dx5 aka digital transformation to the power of 5.

But what is this oft-referenced beast that is digital transformation?

Wikipedia has the best and simplest of examples – ”DX is the adoption of digital technology by a company.”But there are a couple of things that need clarification.

If there is one thing that is clear, it would have to be the fact that there is a difference between digitalisation and digital transformation. The former is taking what exists and making it digital on a platform; the latter is about a shift in mindset. Yes, the future is digital, but it should not be simply changing the storage of documents.

When it comes down to digital transformation, it is critical to understand just how vital humans are. Enterprise Project’s article, Digital Transformation: 3 Ways A Culture Of Innovation Can Drive Your Strategy, says most customers are now expecting ”products and services delivered ever more rapidly, cheaply, and seamlessly in ways they desire and ondemand. Customers will readily replace businesses that fail to adapt to their dynamic needs with those that are more adept in this effort.”

Yet, it seems lots of companies are struggling with digital transformation. And the culprit is technology itself. Laser-like focus is turned towards technology, instead of converting employees into believers.

”In today’s era of volatility, there is no other way but to re-invent. The only sustainable advantage you can have over others is agility, that’s it. Because nothing else is sustainable, everything else you create, somebody else will replicate.”

— Jeff Bezos, Founder, Amazon

Forbes agrees the people are at the core of transformation in How To Re-Architect Four Business Components With Digital Transformation. ”Effective digital transformation cornerstones on one thing: participation and early buy-in from all staff, not just your CEO or CTO. You could execute on every other pillar but if you miss this mark, it fails.” If the whole team is not on the same page, then you might need to reconsider strategy. ”Fundamentally,” adds Harvard Business Review’s Digital Transformation Is Not About Technology ”it’s because most digital technologies provide possibilities for efficiency gains and customer intimacy. But if people lack the right mindset to change, and the current organisational practices are flawed, DX will simply magnify those flaws.”

As you can see, digital transformation is an entire universe explorable in as many ways as there are technologies. It is for this reason that we are expanding our content to include the entire C-Suite. After all, digital transformation is a high-level conversation that must trickle down else it will be an epic fail. Literally everyone in an organisation is the keeper of digital transformation. If you had not pivoted during COVID-19, then chances are you will need to rethink and reexamine the impact technology can have on your business. You need to think fast too because you need to have started yesterday. www.cioafrica.co | AUGUST 2022 | CIO Africa Magazine | by dx⁵

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ARTICLE by

RICK PETERS

Operational Technology Leaders Continue To Face Challenges To boost operational efficiency and profitability, many OT companies have been integrating OT infrastructure and thereby indirectly connecting supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems with IT networks to manage actionable data across a formerly air-gapped framework.

However, the improved agility and efficiency derived from digitally connected OT-IT networks comes with increased cybersecurity risk.

Operational technology (OT) is the cyber physical foundation that enables the world’s factories, energy production and transmission facilities, transportation networks, and utilities to function.

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To understand the types of threats facing operational technology and how OT teams can mitigate these threats, Fortinet conducted a survey of organizations in critical industries with greater than 2,500 employees. We surveyed plant and manufacturing operations leaders in: 1.

2.

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Manufacturing Energy and utilities Healthcare Transportation

The results are compiled in the Fortinet 2021 State of Operational Technology and Cybersecurity Report. The report illuminates where OT is most vulnerable, the types of cyberattacks organisations face, current security tactics, and the areas where cybersecurity protocols need improvement.

Security Struggles Continue Within OT Organisations This year’s report indicates that OT leaders continue to be involved in cybersecurity, but it remains a struggle. And over the past year, the pandemic has only added to the security issues leaders had to face. The momentum for OT-IT network convergence was evident pre-pandemic, but the effects of pandemic-driven innovation accelerated digital

guest editor transformation and increased extended connectivity.

Facing the challenge of extending the plant environment to accommodate remote work, many organisations had to increase their technology budgets to support rapid solution deployment.

Seeking to benefit where possible from the many changes brought about by the pandemic, many OT leaders are looking for new ways to streamline processes and reduce future costs.

Although progress is being made, there is room for improvement. Most OT organisations are not leveraging orchestration and automation and their security readiness was further taxed by the COVID-19 crisis. OT-IT network convergence coupled with an everincreasing advanced threat landscape and coping with pandemic-related issues made it even more difficult for OT leaders to stay ahead of disruptive cyber adversaries.

The Fortinet study highlights four key insights about the current state of OT security across organisations.

1. OT Organisations Continue To Experience Intrusions As a group, organisations represented by the OT leaders who participated in the survey faced challenges in preventing cyber criminals from accessing systems and disrupting business. 9 out of 10 organisations experienced at least one intrusion in the past year, which is almost identical to the results of the 2020 survey.

Arguably, the pandemic presented some unforeseen challenges, however a 90 per cent rate of intrusion represents a significant problem that should concern OT leaders.

2. OT Leaders Weren’t Prepared For Pandemic-Related Changes OT leaders had to quickly increase spending to manage the processes related to the digital connectivity of IT-OT network assets that are essential to supporting work from home. These two separate issues both affected

technology budgets. SOCs and NOCs required more staff and equipment as the pandemic accelerated digital transformation and increased the need for connectivity for secure remote access.

Employees working from home and OEMs and system integrators were hampered by their ability to travel. The pandemic accelerated the need for secure remote access as technical staff could not be on-site to perform work in-person.

3. Organisations Faced Malware And An Increased Incidence of Insider Threats and Phishing The survey showed significant growth in phishing attacks with 58% per cent reporting this type of intrusion, up from 43 per cent last year. The increase in phishing stems from attackers exploiting weaknesses related to the rapid changes to support remote work that emerged at the beginning of 2020.

Along with balance of most global IT business, OT organisations were clearly affected. As employees continue to work remotely, it is clear that OT organisations need to extend zero trust to their endpoints to address the expanded attack surface.

4. OT Leaders Continue To Struggle With Security Measurements OT leaders are tracking and reporting cybersecurity measurements consistently with ”cost” falling lower on the priority list than ”risk assessment” and ”implications to the business.”

Vulnerabilities (70 per cent), and intrusions (62 per cent) remain the top

cybersecurity measurements that are tracked and reported, but tangible risk management outcomes have become more prevalent this year (57 per cent).

Overcoming The OT Challenges Arguably, the demand for resiliency that is achieved from implementing cybersecurity best practices has gained amplified interest over the past 12 months. Despite that interest, the 2021 report indicates that OT leaders continue to struggle. Increased digital connectivity of OT and IT networks rolls on, yet in this year’s survey only 7 per cent of OT leaders reported no intrusions. It’s clear that many organisations face challenges when it comes to security practices and ultimately protecting their infrastructure from today’s increasingly sophisticated cyber threats.

With that said, top-tier OT organisations are realising cybersecurity success and managing to weather the unusual situation brought on by the pandemic and the corresponding rapid innovation. Those top-tier organisations continue to make a commitment to promoting centralised visibility and taking a proactive approach to security to protect their critical systems.

Learn how Fortinet secures the convergence of OT and IT. By designing security into complex infrastructure via the Fortinet Security Fabric, organisations have an efficient, non-disruptive way to ensure that the OT environment is protected and compliant.

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ARTICLE by

CAROL ODERO

Warren Hero is a CIO/CDO from one of, if not THE biggest and one of the best law firms in Africa. Webber Wentzel houses hundreds of lawyers (450+) and hundreds of employees (800+). The BBBEE firm (Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment) and their ecosystem is as much tech as it is law. They may have just found the Goldilocks of IT and law.

Warren

Hero

When David E. Kelley writes a lawyer, they are wildly singular, compelling, and more than a little odd. He must have driven countless strivers into law campus libraries.

Students who thought life would be like a character in a David E. Kelley show. It isn’t. But. If he had to extrapolate a law firm in Africa, chances are he would investigate a legal firm rather like Webber Wentzel.

Founded in the 19th century, the 154-year-old law firm has had generations of brilliant minds pass through it.

Conversations And People Matter; More Than Technology

And another thing. Big Five, says Wiki, is ”a term informally used in South Africa to refer to those law firms which collectively, are perceived to be the leading law firms based in South Africa.” Make that all of Africa by the way. This list includes Webber Wentzel, founded in 1868 and nurturing a collaborative alliance with Linklaters LLP, an Old Money multinational law firm headquartered in London. A firm so elite it is part of the Magic Circle, a term 8

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the lead

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bestowed upon the top five law firms in London by legal journalists in the 90s; London’s Big Five iteration of the most prestigious firms whose power lies in profitably outperforming other multinational law firms.

Award-winning Webber Wentzel comes with a staff of approximately 800 people, including over 400 lawyers, and two offices Johannesburg and Cape Town. The past decade has announced them as employers of choice, as African Law Firm of the Year, to being a Tier 1 legend. The Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment Act, [No. 53 of 2003], is meant to ”advance economic transformation and enhance the economic participation of black people in the South African economy.”

The thing about law firms is that they rarely, in fact, never, tell the story of the CIO. Technology and law have not exactly been allies. Not with all that talk about automating legal services soon turning everyone into their own personal counsel and draftsman. Warren Hero, however, lives as a man who has reconciled law and tech and thinks of tech as a ”superpower” and an enabler. ”Law is reactive. Something happens, then you consult a lawyer.

What happens in a world that moves so fast, and is so disruptive, I think law is obligated to go from reactive to proactive. We have an understanding on when to position ourselves for a preventative mindset.”

CIOs drive the tech agenda in business and are expected to be familiar with new technologies, using this knowledge to recommend what works when it comes to business strategy. When you need to purchase technologies, what’s the process and how do you influence the organisation?

Our approach is architectural. Let’s just talk about what that means. If you believe that in the future you will

build a house with 10 rooms, and you can only afford four rooms, you have to decide which four rooms to build. you can plan to eventually get into your 10 rooms. Our approach is principle first only. I also have a really good team that works with me and of course my contemporaries in the organisation supporting and aligning our purpose.

We want our organisation to be transformative and sustainable. We are multi-generational and the first point of people connecting to the organisation is purpose.

Beyond that, what we do revolves around our clients, and they validate it.

We are a knowledge-based business and a large company globally especially when aligned with Linklaters, a global top five law firm. We use the type of tech that allows our people to do the work and have conversations with our clients becomes the core of our organisation. The investments make the entire organisation experience transparency so that we can take advantage of the knowledge that is shared, generated or referenced

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in these conversations. In those conversations we discover inefficiencies and use those to better the process.

Small incremental changes that become smart. We are always going back to principles and purpose and report the benefits to the organisation.

What about the C-Suite? A CIO is likely to need input from the CFO or CEO, or whoever the CIO reports to. Are the powers that be involved in the process as a tech savvy lot, or do you need to break it down for them as CDO/CIO? My approach is to teach people principles that they can understand how we are making business decisions.

My bosses – the managing and senior partners as well as the COO - know that I run one of the biggest learning and development programmes.

We teach digital literacy and what it means to operate in a digital context.

We talk about the VUCA (Volatility.

Uncertainty.

Complexity. Ambiguity.) environment. Everything that we are trying to do is make sure to find the medicine for VUCA. That way we not only survive the disruption, but we make sure that we thrive under it. I run a one-on-one education project in both Executive Committee and the Board to infuse people with legal and technical knowledge, and able to marry those. We want to get to the point where everyone in the organisation is a technologist.

I cannot imagine this happening at Webber Wentzel (+ Linklater) since you are one of the biggest and most prestigious law firms in Africa. All the same, how would you deal with budgetary constraints?

the lead We are not just dealing with this in IT. Part of VUCA has reprioritised our spending. COVID-19 decreased our spending on our physical space quite significantly. Over the last four financial years we have had a compound annual growth in our technology budget in excess 50 per cent to 60 per cent. Maybe it is because everybody is a technologist in the organisation. Our focus is not just on improving IT as a cost centre. We see opportunity because we can improve our decision-making as to tech has given us a lift in productivity. One of our corporate practices digitised the core process end to end. Before we did this, it used to take around seven months.

After the people change management as well as tech implementation and process adjustments, it went down from seven months to six weeks. That type of improvement in productivity gives us the ability to do the thing that we want to do, which is speaking to our clients.

Our reprioritisation of technology is not just for technology’s sake. We have looked across the enterprise and shifted our spending from physical infrastructure to digital capabilities. We are passing on some of the productivity to our clients. That productivity gives us the ability to grow our wallet share with our clients because we see tech as the biggest growth opportunity for our business and for operational transformation.

That is quite something!

If you look at the accolades that Webber Wentzel has got from an ESG perspective as the top law firm in Africa, we are always second or first in the past five years, as well as the law firm with the most increase in mergers and acquisition (M&A) volume. We were named Dealmakers of the Decade falling short of just 1 trillion rand. We make sure our community gets value integrated in the way our core legal business is conducted. During our M&A, we always make sure there is a win/ win for both communities (us and our clients) as commercial enterprises.

This sounds like quite an

accomplishment for the firm. What about you? What would you say are your proudest moments in your career?

Probably when I was CTO for Microsoft prior to joining Webber-Wentzel, I was instrumental in landing the first cloud fabric data centres for the African continent. This mattered because it increased skills for tech professionals but more clearly the ability of African business having access to AI and cognitive services to be able to compete in the digital age. That for me is one of my proudest achievements.

The other – I am so fortunate to be part of incredible teams that stay relevant and make contributions towards the organisations even when I leave them.

How have you managed to do that?

In my life I have had incredible coaching and mentors. To come to the law firm and be given a blind sheet of paper and talk about how we can transform our entire business, I am grateful that I have been able to play a big role in business development and digital transformation.

Let’s flip the coin. What have you learnt from your failures?

In tech, if you are not failing you are not pushing hard enough. My leadership style is what it is right now because I learnt some hard lessons. The major one is that the people are the most important thing not the technology.

People build capabilities that give us the tech that allow us to be efficient. When I look for the root cause in the pathology of the behaviour of my team, I need to look at myself. My behaviour creates the team and vice versa.

This is where diversity and inclusion make such a huge difference.

Understanding the fact that I don’t want everybody thinking like me, gender, intellectual as well as sexual orientation improves the decision-making. When I joined, our gender diversity was zero.

Now, gender diversity across the firm is 40 per cent.

Congratulations!

In my life I have had incredible coaching and mentors.

Not congratulations when you start to understand the value and nature of D&I (diversity and inclusion). My issue is not to worry about failure, but to learn from it. The best way to learn is from people’s differences. The other thing is the value of psychological safety. If someone feels psychologically safe at work, they will find the time – and they will not be afraid to fail because they understand failure is a gateway to a better decision, a better process, better implementation.

Webber Wentzel is now 154 years old.

Just before COVID, we had our best financial year in the history of the organisation. We had to transition working remotely and were able to do that in a matter of weeks because we had integrated scenario planning. As a result, 2020 and 2021, both years in terms of financial outcomes, were better than the previous year. We set the benchmark for over 150 years of the organisation. That for me is testament to the fact that we can create a compelling case for psychological safety and change. There are no performance barriers they cannot break. When we can meet everyone’s capability and learn to trust, our only limit is our imagination.

When it comes to digital transformation, it helps when the C-Suite is on the same page. It is the one thing that drives strategy. Have you ever had a moment when someone in the C-Suite makes unfeasible requests or doesn’t rally around the Webber Wentzel purpose?

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the lead Because of the processes I described earlier that everyone is a technologist who understands principles and how we prioritise and assess our investments, I don’t often get unfeasible requests.

The first thing I will ask anyone to do, be it a tech person, or a C-Suite executive, is if they know precisely the logic to follow because they know how to prioritise decisions. I take time for that education. And because of the architectural approach, we think of how the components fit together.

Continuous learning is said to be one of the most critical ways to stay youthful and sprightly. In fact, pretty much all the CIOs I have interviewed believe it is the best way to do sharpen iron. How do you stay in the loop?

Conversations. The first place I will go to are the experts and ask them to point me to the things they use. Social media, specifically LinkedIn and Twitter, if you follow the right groups, you can find the right communities which can point you to more expertise and experiences to explore. Often, we think if we have knowledge of something we can navigate. Knowledge plus experience is the thing that makes the execution serious.

I speak to a lot of futurists as well.

I have a couple of friends who are futurists across the world so I spend a lot of time talking to them and then trying to develop my own competence by thinking about scenarios and adjusting in advance where tech might go. This is what I call ”shared memories of the future.” Then returning to the present and behaving consistently in a way of sharing those memories of the future.

When someone wants to become a lawyer, doctor, or engineer, they have to go through a lot of steps with various bodies vetting and acknowledging these achievements. But there’s no specific path to becoming a CIO. What, in your opinion, does it take to be a great CIO? Persistence. Forethought. Option thinking. An internal locus of control

when it comes to motivation because of the role CIOs play in cultivate psychological safety. Synthesis.

The knowledge of infrastructure, applications, geopolitics, and the world or even what is happening in Ukraine to understand how that would affect supply chains and therefore planning and doing some risk analysis to try and think about how these situations could change, what is the inherent risk and how to mitigate it. Our organisation focuses on the growth of our clients, people, as well as our financial outcomes, I always think about what good risks and bad risks are.

From what I have observed, Webber Wentzel appears to be a Smart Organisation. You are ”knowledgedriven, internetworked, dynamically adaptive” as described by Research Gate. A Smart Organisation, they say, is one that is ”safe, principledriven and value focused. Smart Organisations foster and facilitate aligned engagement from its members and receives, embraces and acts upon proven tools wherever they are found.

Smart Organisations have developed an internal competency to self-develop or acquire actionable methods and tools.” Everything you have said so far, positions you as such. In what ways have you made your organisation smarter?

I think in every way. The way that we approach our organisation and people, the modernisation of our client and now the modernisation of our client platform and operations. It is always about liberating information from those platforms so that we can recreate in pictures that enable the organisation’s decision-making. And because of that decision-making is data driven, it becomes even. We have over 14 different deployed AI and are now starting to use this to enable predictive and active decision-making, Part of your work is looking to the future while learning from the past and living in the present. This is like being in three places or states of mind at once. While

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this is what every professional needs to do individually, it is rather different to do it as a career.

We always envision the future, but we also understand the present is a bridge to the future. We are always on the lookout for current things that bridge the situation the way we decrease our spending on the business and instead, choose to focus on innovation. For instance, innovation makes for 32 per cent of your bottom-line each year.

When you look at the contribution of innovation over the next decade, it can be 70 per cent plus on your bottom line.

We are very pragmatic about where we currently are but our focus on the future is unequivocal. As professionals, we need to create a way in which the organisation can be competitive in terms of its business model.

Everyone knows if you want to be a lawyer, a doctor or an engineer you have to follow very specific steps. You can’t skip a phase or jump ahead. There is no corresponding path for a CIO. But you’re one. How does one build a successful CIO career?

Become a servant. Understand the value of data and how you want to become a great data steward. It is about the information in the form of wisdom to predictive analysis for decision making. Understand that what we do is not about the past but about the future.

We are trying to create an organisation that is future fit and such organisations, according to the World Economic Forum, exhibit certain hallmarks. According to the WEF, critical thinking, creativity, and collaboration, are the things that enable us to be future fit. I take license and add a fourth element to that – courage.

The reason why is because of this quote from Walter Truett Anderson. He talks about organisational linguistics. That organisations are built out of words and maintained by conversations even problems like failure of mechanical systems can be explored in terms of conversations. Questions asked and not answered. Conversations never begun and left incomplete. Alternate

ability to have difficult conversations and using them to drive us.

How many people are in your team?

suggestions not discussed. This is why once again I return to diversity and inclusion. These conversations require courage. What I want to do as CIO is to be able to conduct conversations, take it, and make it actionable in terms of being able to support our clients, our people and our data-driven decisions.

Your role at Webber Wentzel is dual.

Not only are you the CIO, but you are also the CDO. What is the distinction between the two?

My friend was a previous managing director at Microsoft. He said, ”If you know what you’re building and you work on the third floor, you always get off the same floor. But when you get off at a different floor you discover the unexpected. When it comes to my role, I tend to want to explore all of it, again, with conversation, making the outcomes actionable, bringing together those perspectives. That way we can create a capability led organisation that has an edge in the market.

My strategy lecturer always used to say, ”Earning above average market income.” That ability to position the organisation because of the capabilities developed, in relation to its growth, gives it that ability to develop above average income compared to the market. Everything, as my mentor used to say, works close to the bottom-line.

If what you do cannot be evidenced in the way you create value for not just the organisation, but the community broadly, then you are doing a disservice.

I believe technology is a superpower. In both of my roles, I think about how to make that superpower to make people’s lives easier.

When it comes to the role of a CIO and CDO, there must be a lot of day-to-day

work getting done. The routine part of your job or your team that is pure maintenance. How do you balance risk, innovation and keeping lights on?

We’ve got some really good strategic providers and we negotiate with them, and they help us keep our lights on.

Then we use our people to do the coolest, leading and edgy things which they do because they believe in our purpose and have the opportunity to realise their potential. They find the opportunity to play and experiment in their job descriptions and make sure we are always connecting the future. And because we always stay relevant. I have consistently been able to reduce our business-as-usual IT stance.

Webber Wentzel and Linklater combined literally make you and them one of the most powerful law firms on the planet. It must put a lot of things on your plate. I wouldn’t be surprised if you are on call 24/7. How do you manage that?

I think balance is a fallacy. There’s this proverb that says, ”the squeaky wheel gets the grease.” I see no discontinuity between my personal purpose as well as my ability to use tech which is a superpower able to impact the world.

From that perspective, it is my life. It is how I do things. More importantly it is why I do things.

I love what you said about tech being a superpower. I’ve never heard anyone say that. What kind of technologies keep you neck ad neck with successful organisations?

Conversations with my people and stakeholders – where we talk about conversational technology. It’s not about the bits and the bytes, but the

I have about 30 full-time equivalents and probably 80 to 100 people busy on other projects. This brings up agility and productivity which I spoke on earlier about VUCA. Our approach is grounded in human-centred design. The first thing we try and do is deep empathy with the people we try to solve problems. We start with the U for understanding in VUCA, our own, and individuals we try to influence. With that we create our vision and purpose to be transformative and sustainable. Then we go through the process of refining it which creates a common ground which then deals with the C in VUCA, which is about clarity. The fact that we have refined our vision and gone through our understanding, we can then release everyone to act with clarity. Part of my responsibility as a leader is to make sure everyone finds a way to dance to their song.

Is yours a career you would recommend?

Absolutely. I’m fanatical about it. Why would I not? It is one of those things that brings together all capabilities.

Remember when we brought down the time from seven months to six weeks?

My bosses said to me that it was enough. I said I believe it is only enough when what we do is frictionless and instantaneous. That’s when I’ll stop.

This has been a serious conversation right up to this point. Let’s wind it up by you telling us what you do for fun.

I geek out in so many different ways.

I am currently doing a lot of work in the metaverse and intellectual property in the metaverse, thinking about what it means for brands and organisations, for competitiveness.

I also run a project with some geek friends of mine in Botswana. I am also a digital transformation expert for H.E. President of Botswana. Our vision is to create a model of sustainable living and connectivity in communities.

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David Brooks, Senior Specialist, Product Management, Liquid Cloud and Cyber Security

Advertorial

How Liquid Cloud Is Spearheading The Evolution Of The Enterprise In Africa It wasn’t even 10 years ago that cloud technology felt like a slice of fringe tech that many businesses saw as unnecessary in the face of their own sprawling on-prem IT infrastructure.

Today, cloud is a booming industry in which organisations continue to push the boundaries of what is possible and provide new and improved solutions for critical problems – and the best part is – its available to everyone no matter how big or how small.

Year after year, we have witnessed cloud levelling the playing field, unlocking access to resources and technologies previously reserved only for those who could afford to buy, own and manage it. A migration. With the proliferation of global cloud service providers like Microsoft Azure, the utility of cloud has become endless. However, there are cloud adoption challenges that many African businesses face beyond the financial.

These can include technical concerns such as latency and access to international bandwidth and a wave of new regulations calling for sensitive data to remain within the borders. This is driving a divide between countries that have access to Hyper-Scale Public cloud providers in their country and those that don’t.

So, let’s take a look at how these challenges can be overcome.

Local servers, lower latency – what’s the benefit?

The allure of cloud technology like Microsoft Azure is that it can become a tech equaliser between start-ups and large organisations. Resources can be accessed in real-time by the hour, making development and testing more efficient and reducing the need for large capital-intensive hardware expenditure.

The premise of cloud is that everything you need is stored on a server, preferably in your region of operation.

In Africa, this is seldom the case as data centres are few and far between.

with Microsoft Azure to establish what we call Liquid Azure regions.

Let’s take Microsoft Azure, for instance.

Microsoft has set up two major data centres where it houses local servers in Johannesburg, South Africa. Four years ago, the entire continent was utilising servers in western Europe. That meant all of Africa was subject to high latency.

In these regions, we have set up a mini-data centre in collaboration with Microsoft to provide local businesses in certain regions with local hosting capabilities. This is where companies can store and utilise sensitive and private information that is meant to be stored in country. We then integrate these servers with the greater Azure landscape to provide the full benefits of the public cloud for data that doesn’t need to be bogged down by national regulations.

While this is not particularly damaging, the pace of technological evolution is demanding much faster turnaround times when it comes to computational power. It is has now become critical for many businesses and industries that rely on real-time applications or live streaming, including banking, diagnostic imaging, navigation, stock trading, weather forecasting, collaboration, research, ticket sales, video broadcasting, online gaming, and more. This list continues to grow.

Local servers provide lower latency, but they can also help businesses comply with evermore popular data privacy regulations being enforced in numerous African states – some more stringent than others. In most cases, there is an element of data sovereignty or the requirement to “keep data within the borders.” This poses unique challenges to organisations looking to adopt cloud technologies while not having a hyperscale cloud provider like Azure in their country.

Solving for local data needs Azure stack offers the perfect solution to this problem by filling the gap and bringing resources closer to end-users.

Simply put, it provides the ability to bring Azure Cloud resources to a server hosted at an organisation’s offices or in a local data centre.

Yet, the setting up and running of one’s own server defies the point of cloud as this is exactly what most businesses were trying to avoid in the first place.

Luckily, companies like Liquid teamed up

In essence, this extension to public Azure allows its users to store and process data locally on the appliance and still leverage the large-scale power and technologies that can only be delivered from a hyper-scale cloud. So far, Liquid has set up Liquid Azure regions in Kigali, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam and Harare. But this is only the beginning.

It’s only upwards from here The truth is, Africa currently accounts for less than 1 per cent of total available global data centre capacity. However, its capacity has doubled in the past three years. With more official data centres from the likes of Microsoft, and more locally relevant solutions like Liquid Azure regions, we are well on our way to fulfilling our mission to create a digitally connected future that leaves no African behind.

In line with its mission to create a digitally connected future that leaves no African behind, Liquid has rolled out shared Azure Stack environments in several countries.

With four Liquid Azure regions live, and a lot more in the works across the continent, Africa is poised to get the full advantage of cloud innovation with partners like Liquid and Microsoft spurring on our success.

www.cioafrica.co | AUGUST 2022 | CIO Africa by dx⁵ www.cioafrica.co | JULYMagazine 2022 | CIO| AFRICA

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ARTICLE by

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TASHA FRANCIS

her chat

Just Do It! A Chat With Noureen Njoroge She is an award winner of 2021 cybersecurity specialist, listed among Top Global Influencers in Cybersecurity by Europe IFSEC, awarded Global Cybersecurity Ambassador by Rocheston, 2020 Cybersecurity Woman of the year, named 2019 Cisco Cybersecurity Champion, and is listed among the Top 30 Most Admired Minority Professionals in Cybersecurity in the UK. Being the Director of Global Cyber Threat Intelligence at Nike, one can only imagine how tough it was to track down Noureen Njoroge, but we managed it.

Passionate about cybersecurity, she has built her career with vast experience in multi-faceted, complex, fast-paced environments in the public and private sectors.

She is a strategic thinker with vast knowledge of business management and cybersecurity practices. She has proven leadership experience on issues concerning security and data privacy.

Noureen demonstrates consistent client and business success by delivering strategic solutions and applying creativity and judgment, to effectively negotiate mitigation solutions and proactive threats prevention. She has helped and continues to help bridge the gap between those interested in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) field who seek a mentor and those who are experienced in it, through two platforms that she has created to help mentors and mentees connect.

A sitting board member on Women in Cybersecurity (WiCyS), she exudes not only the passion for having a hand in shifting the status quo to include more women in the STEM field, but the commitment to generously share insights on an ongoing basis, and her desire to help clients protect their business and their data in a complex and uncertain world as well.

Describe who Noureen is in a minute.

I am an astute problem solver, an effective translator between technical and non-technical entities in cybersecurity, and a people leader. I am a global keynote speaker who thrives in leading high-performance teams and am very passionate about mentoring others, and always strive to set an example for others to follow based on hard work and staying ahead of the pack in a rapidly changing industry.

Your parents are qualified engineers.

Would you say that was a big influence on your choice of studies/career choice in the STEM field?

year, my Christmas and birthday gift wishes were just computer parts, and my family and friends were gracious enough to get them for me. This then became my hobby, and I would eventually assemble a few computers from scratch and donated those to local schools and hospitals in need. I am passionate about helping others and finding great fulfillment in doing so.

Your passion to serve and help others, especially from such a young and impressionable age is admirable. Did you have any interest in studying anything outside the stem field before choosing it as your study subject?

I had a good upbringing, and I am grateful for that. My parents, both qualified engineers by profession, invested a lot in our education and instilled a never-ending quest for self-discovery and learning. So yes, indeed, they had a profound influence on me. Math and Science were frequent conversations around our home, which did spark my keen interest in the STEM career field.

Honestly not. My curiosity and passion for computer networking helped me stay focused on the IT industry.

When did you realise you were passionate about tech and wanted to do this for the rest of your life?

Curiosity led me to a cybersecurity career. I was that one student who always had questions to ask. When I got my bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, I landed a Systems Admin role. Those late-night shifts at the data centre were the core foundation of my career. I learned a lot. While in this role, I attended a lunch-and-learn session that was hosted by the Infosec team.

I developed a keen interest in computers, at the tender age of 14. I recall disassembling and assembling my first desktop shortly after receiving it as a Christmas gift. From that moment, my curiosity about tech sparked. Every

Not many people have the opportunity or even the sheer luck to know what they are passionate about from such a tender age, and then to pursue a successful career in it is rare. How did you get your start in the cybersecurity field?

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They shared information on the latest malware trends, tactics, techniques, and procedures used by the threat actors.

I was so fascinated by the knowledge shared, and I asked so many questions to the point where they offered me the opportunity to shadow the team to learn more. It was this opportunity that deepened my security interest. Later, I was offered an opportunity to join the MIT cybersecurity programme. From the knowledge I had already attained, I knew that cybersecurity would be the future, and I wanted to be a part of it.

This proves that asking can truly lead to receiving. That questioning is a good thing. What are the three things that you enjoy the most about working in the cybersecurity field?

Yes. Always be learning. As a life-long learner, the ever-changing cybersecurity industry keeps me motivated to keep on learning as there is never a dull moment. With community network and collaboration, I’ve come to know and network with so many in the cybersecurity space which is truly inspiring and encouraging at the same time. It’s a lucrative, rewarding career in pay and compensation though one must play their part in honing their skillset to reap the benefits.

first two years were very rough, but I eventually gave up my egotistical ”I can do this” mentality and sought career guidance from my professors. It was a journey. I had to reset my mind and follow counsel. I also had to realign my priorities and focus on school which meant long hours of studying.

Eventually, my grades began to improve.

I kept seeking counsel and finally graduated as an honour student.

How did you deal with this failure and get yourself back to refocus and approach it with a different perspective?

Lessons learned then which I still apply today are: •

Never shy away from asking questions and support

•

Be open-minded

•

Accept change as part of growth

•

Hard work pays

•

There are always people willing to help. You just have to reach out and ask

•

Failure is just a stepping-stone to success

As the Director of Global Cyber Threat Intelligence at Nike, what are your primary responsibilities and day-to-day tasks?

Those are great lessons and advice and can be applied to any situation whether in one’s personal or professional life.

Many people, I included struggle with imposter syndrome. What is your approach to dealing with or overcoming it?

Unfortunately, we are prohibited from sharing such information due to the nature of the work the team does.

However, we can document just my title role, and company name. Sorry.

Aha! The imposter syndrome! Let me first define it. In a nutshell, imposter syndrome is the state of feeling of a sense of inadequacy that persists despite evident success.

No problem. That is completely understandable. Let’s talk about failure.

Failure is inevitable, and I believe that it helps propel us to our success and is our greatest learning curve. What has been a failure on your path to your success, (where you are today)?

During my undergraduate studies, I was not wise in selecting my classes.

I struggled with poor grades. The

We all encounter such feelings whether we admit it or not in our career journey.

Just knowing this is reassuring. No one is alone in this. My advice on coping with or overcoming it, is to first know what your impostor type is. For example, if you are a perfectionist like me, you can practice embracing the fact that things will not always go your way.

100 per cent flawless is not guaranteed.

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Practice accepting mistakes and viewing them as a natural part of the process which sparks innovation. To echo what Albert Einstein said, ”Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”

There will definitely be an increase in ”What is my Imposter Syndrome Type” Google searches after people read this article! We know that there are fewer women especially leaders and heads in the tech space. Did this present itself as a challenge to you on your rise up?

Of course, it did have an impact on me especially when I was looking for a mentor. I was surprised to learn there were very few of us in this industry space though I am glad that organisations such as Women in Cybersecurity (WiCyS), which I am a seating board member, are shifting this status quo.

If yes, how did you overcome these challenges?

About overcoming the challenge of finding the right mentor, I kept on networking with others in the industry space and found very valuable mentors.

In addition, since I like solving problems, from my experience above, I created two platforms whereby mentors and mentees can connect making it easier for others. All are welcome to join here: LinkedIn Mentoring Group and the Global Mentoring Sessions which occur on the 3rd Saturday every month at 11 am EST. Indeed, we rise by lifting others.

How can young women combat the challenge of entering the Tech space, especially in leadership roles?

Get a mentor ASAP! Sounds simple but it works. A good mentor can answer those discrete career questions and give specifically tailored advice. They can also see strengths in you that you may not be aware of which if nurtured, can add great value as an advance in leadership roles. Career growth into leadership takes time and thus one must be

her chat

”I can do this” mentality and sought career guidance from my professors. It was a journey. I had to reset my mind and follow counsel. I also had to realign my priorities and focus on school which meant long hours of studying. Eventually, my grades began to improve.

patient with the process too. ”If you don’t ask for what you want or what you need to be supported, you may never know what is possible.” J. Busenbark Indeed, wise words. Do you have any advice for people entering the cybersecurity profession?

•

Be patient with yourself, as it takes time to grasp the vast domains of cybersecurity.

some experience, and then consider which specific domain certificate you’d like to pursue, if necessary.

•

Network with others in the industry by attending local meetups, chapters, and social media platform group gatherings.

•

Lastly, don’t be too hard on yourself. Cybersecurity is indeed a journey, not a destination.

•

Embrace change, as this industry is constantly evolving, and you must constantly learn to adapt.

•

Get a mentor ASAP to help answer your discrete career questions and provide you with tailored career advice.

Profound advice. I hope that those who are reading this, are understanding the importance of a mentor. At last year’s (2021) HerNovation Summit, Jaine Mwai spoke about the importance of setting boundaries and finding a balance between work and personal life to thrive in both. How do you balance your personal and work life?

•

Do not rush into certifications, as they can be costly. Instead, gain

I focus on being present whether I am walking, driving, reading working.

I focus on that specific task alone. I used to be a multitasker then I realised I was stretching myself so thin I had to change this habit. I have seen great improvement as I can tune out possible interruptions or distractions in my surroundings.

Amidst the chaos of daily life and work, what keeps you grounded?

My faith. It helps me with the power of serenity. ”To accept the things, I cannot change. The courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

What do you do in your downtime?

I enjoy reading hard copy books that are not security-related, outdoor adventure like bike riding, engage in community volunteer services and visiting art museums.

www.cioafrica.co | AUGUST 2022 | CIO Africa Magazine | by dx⁵

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Smart Risk Management Agile · Safe · Connected

6th October 2022 @dx5ve

20 www.cioafrica.co | AUGUST 2022 | CIO Africa Magazine | by dx⁵

@dx5group

Who is…

www.cioafrica.co | AUGUST 2022 | CIO Africa Magazine | by dx⁵

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meet the founders

Creating disruptive engagement platforms and communities to ensure sustainable digital transformation…

22 www.cioafrica.co | AUGUST 2022 | CIO Africa Magazine | by dx⁵

HARRY HARE, Co-Founder & Chairman

KELLY BENTLEY, Co-Founder & Group CEO

ANDREW KARANJA, Co-Founder & Director

Harry Hare says titles don’t really mean much to him. In the grand scheme of things, refers to himself as a KYM – Kikuyu for jack of all trades. It has served him well as an entrepreneur. It has meant there is no task too small that he would be unwilling to do it.

Kelly Bentley is well, Kelly. She shows up. And when she does you will know; rebelling without a pause to humanise B2B engagements. Co-Founder & CEO of dx⁵ she has been at the forefront of, and championing, business optimisation and stakeholder engagement across the continent. With a sales and marketing leadership background in the technology industry working across the USA, Europe and Africa for over 20 years.

Andrew is the quiet one. An alumnus of University of Southern Queensland. He may be the Director at African eDevelopment Resource Centre, as well as the Director at dx⁵ (formerly known as CIO Africa), but you would never tell. Meeting Andrew is meeting humility personified.

You would never know what his accomplishments are if you ever visited his LinkedIn page. You would need to know him to well, know him! Andrew has silently observed the tech industry disrupt Africa, all the while growing exponentially over the past couple of decades.

An anthropologist by training, Harry was drawn to technology and has never looked back. From coding to training to publishing to techprenuership, name it, he has been there. His deep understanding of technology and how it impacts business is what sets him apart.

Add the ability to clearly articulate this relationship and you have one of the rarest skills sets around.

This gave Harry incredible insight into the CIOs struggle - finding tech content relevant to Africa,

by Africans, for Africans. It inspired CIO Africa magazine, and later, partnering with The Rebel Element to form dx⁵. As a serial entrepreneur with a passion for technology, he sees digital transformation as the future of enterprise. The enterprise of the future will be digital, so to speak.

Kelly brings people together as a connector – building communities around their unique needs leveraging skill, experience, and influence to drive value and help people make better business decisions.

A marketeer as per dictionary.com and in reality, a relationship artist. Kelly creates engagement opportunities to help buy or sell digital solutions by understanding the demand for it, and building effective associations.

Passionate about authentic connection and pan-African growth with a focus on partnerships and the unique dx⁵ humancentric engagement model, Kelly acts on, and gets results with ease thanks to her credibility and level of trust in and from her network. When Kelly asks, or makes an introduction, her network carries weight, and inspires people to respond.

With his background in event management and marketing, Andrew has chosen to head in the direction of numbers. Yes. We don’t know why he sidestepped marketing either, but he could just as easily solve a knotty marketing conundrum as he would a financial one. He has, as a result, watched, and steered the bottom line all through the rise of CIO East Africa, to CIO Africa and now, dx⁵.

If he had a motto, it would be slow, steady and sure will win the race.

Harry Hare

Kelly Bentley

Andrew Karanja

@hareharry

@kelbents

@Karanja_Andrew

@hareharry

@rebelwithout_apause

@andrew.karanja

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Meet the dx⁵ team Kelly Bentley

Harry Hare

Co-Founder & Group CEO

Co-Founder & Chairman

Andrew Karanja

Carol Odero

Co-Founder & Director

Teddy Mukabane

dxContent Lead

Ellen Magembe

Finance Manager

dxGuest Engagement Lead

Njambi Waruhiu

Dan Agutu

dxConnect Lead

Samuel Ndung’u

dxDesign & Creative Lead

24 www.cioafrica.co | AUGUST 2022 | CIO Africa Magazine | by dx⁵

dxStudio Lead

Ian Wagga

dxSocial Media Lead

Sandra Mndebele

Stacy Wanjeri

EA to the Group CEO

Customer Success Manager

Justin Maganga

Melissa Dorsila

Customer Success Architect

Purity Kamau

Gerald Muchai

Finance Assistant

dxStudio Sound & Line Producer

Billy Omingo

Customer Success Manager

Kevin Namunwa Tech Writer

dxConnect Creative Architect

Victor Paul Full Stack Developer

Steve Mbego Tech Writer

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Tevin Muigai

Videlis Syovata

dxStudio Videographer

Office Manager & dxTraining Coordinator

Arthur Kuwashima

Michael Odongo

Photographer

IT & Technical Support

Mary Kariithi

Ian Obukwa

dxGuest Engagement Coordinator

Shiru Waweru

Guest Engagement Coordinator

Fidelis Kihobe

Guest Engagement Coordinator

dxStudio Assistant

NANCY ZION

Daniel Mwaha

dxTraining - Customer Success Manager

Samuel Fanjo Administration

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Logistics

Priscillah Ominde Administration

our pillars content

en t

connect

ui tm

consult

de

co m

m u n it

y

s

/

tr

ai

ni ng

community

re

o

cr

m

sk

ill

co n s ult

co n n e c t c o n te n t

our mission

our vision

our values

To humanize digital transformation, build intelligent connections and deliver compelling experiences from Africa, for Africa.

To connect a vibrant community of change-makers and drive significant digital transformation across Africa.

• • • • • •

Honesty & Respect Value-centric Accountable Continuous improvement Diversity & Inclusion Creativity & Innovation

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ARTICLE by

KELLY BENTLEY

The Art & Science Of Connection ‘The person who enjoys walking will always go further than the one who simply enjoys getting to the destination.’

Creating disruptive engagement platforms and connecting communities to build sustainable digital transformation…

A friend of mine recently sent me this quote. ”A person who enjoys walking will always go further than the one who simply enjoys getting to the destination.” It makes me think of the journey to building an authentic relationship – it’s made up of good, bad and ugly moments – stops and starts and most of all commitment and persistence.

What I think most people forget in the marketing and sales world (particularly in technology) is that each connection you make is just a point on a relationship journey and making the point as meaningful as possible from a human perspective is what will actually make the difference to the long-term relationship.

Transaction vs Transformation Technology vendors are so focused on ‘selling’ driven by hyper-growth, a constantly changing competitive landscape and the ever-present fear of industry disruption that transformational engagement is completely off the table.

The ironic truth is, technology buyers are overwhelmed by ‘transactional selling’ and even the recent surge in events and the relief of being back in-person and being able to see teeth smiles not eye smiles is not going to result in sustainable revenue growth.

Sporadic vs Consistent The overused term ‘new-normal’ indicates that things are not the same as they were pre-covid more obviously noted in the changes in processes, systems, rules and regulations that we’ve all experienced but less obviously might be in how we too have changed.

You might read this and say of course I’ve changed, I’m not the person who I was before COVID but my question to you is… have you thought about how your customers, suppliers, shareholders, staff and leadership might have changed… as humans?

What I haven’t seen change is how the tech industry is engaging these stakeholders, the sporadic events and request for ‘qualified leads’ as if technology buyers are a commodity has got to be innovated. It seems so obvious, but building a relationship whether it’s with your partner, your child, your customer or your supplier requires consistent persistence. When was the last time you heard of someone popping ‘Will you marry me?’ on their first date?

Business profit requires multiple touchpoints across multiple platforms in a continuum that is developed and transformed based on how the humans are changing not the technology, service or sales targets.

Remember, waiter today >>> restaurant owner tomorrow.

Our recent merger of CIO Africa with Rebel Element into dx⁵ has seen a strategic response to the critical need for human engagement in sustainable digital transformation. Marrying consistent marketing activity with authentic human connection our vision is to create active digitallydriven communities across the African continent and beyond.

Our belief and focus centres around: •

Educated action – humans are naturally curious and want to learn something new so they can grow that’s why trivia questions are so popular, businesses need to understand how to grow, solve problems and optimise

•

Inclusive fun – we need the entire C-Suite involved to successfully transform a business digitally but the CIO,CISO and CDO lead the way, that means we need to get to understand each other and what is important to our personal and professional lives

•

Intelligent connection – valuedriven not ego-based, how can we balance the connection equation, ensuring it benefits both parties and better still has a positive impact on the community that we are both a part of

Journey vs Destination And whilst you can’t guarantee that every relationship is going to be successful, your commitment to the journey of discovering who a person is and what they need, the habits required to consistently deliver and the creation of win/win value (note value not sale) for all parties is fundamental. It means that even if you don’t walk away with a ‘sale’ you can more than likely guarantee that you’ve either learnt something helpful to take into new relationships or back into your service/product innovation or that you can engage that person at another point in time.

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We’d love to see you become part of our community, please reach out to me personally or to one of the team and lets action impactful change. #strongertogether Get in touch on: ceo@dx5ve.com

studio

PARTNER WITH US FOR A SEAMLESS VIRTUAL & HYBRID EXPERIENCE To partner with us, please contact: Tel: +254 (0) 701 627 097 studio@cioafrica.co

@dx5ve

@dx5group

www.cioafrica.co | AUGUST 2022 | CIO Africa Magazine | by dx⁵

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The Mighty Sting Of The Queen Bee It is a tired trope; women bringing other women down instead of supporting each other.

Except for the part where it just might be true.

The white paper, Queen Bee Syndrome; The Real Reason Women Do Not Promote Women, by Sophia Zhao and Maw-Der Foo (real names, I promise you), begins simply enough. ”The lack of women leaders, especially senior women leaders, has triggered much discussion globally. While more women than men are university graduates in 97 of 145 major and emerging countries worldwide, women make up the majority of skilled workers in only 68 of those countries and are the majority of leaders in only four countries. Moreover, women currently hold only 4 per cent of CEO positions at S&P 500 companies.”

We know this. The stats are familiar.

Perhaps we have even chanted them.

There is a perpetual tapering off of women from the bottom as they head towards the top. Study upon papers upon research has said so. Several reasons exist. One of the things that has been mentioned as the cause has been the lack of support by women at the top to subordinates. There is a name for this. The Queen Bee Syndrome. Queen Bees, in case you are wondering, are basically grown-up and more calculating Mean Girls.

You would imagine solidarity would be at the root of female interaction in the workplace, especially one that is typically male dominated. It ain’t so. Women are increasingly enrolling for bachelor’s degrees at a pace outnumbering the men. The number in senior management is steadily growing, and more women are getting appointed to boards. But, don’t rejoice just yet.

Women are still underrepresented in the C-Suite. Fortune 500 companies reflect this. The percentage of women

at higher managerial positions only compose 5 per cent of CEOs as of 2016 with 20 per cent of women as board members.

Being the Queen Bee, not to be confused with THE Queen Bey, is a bad, bad thing not just for other women. It eats away at the organisation. When women in senior positions – sometimes referred to as Alphas – the white paper continues to say, ”bully subordinates and obstruct other women’s career advancement,” such women ”are seen as selfish, insensitive, and power hungry. If a senior woman leader has a reputation as a queen bee, women in less senior positions often are advised to avoid working with her.”

Queen Bee Syndrome: A Modern Dilemma of Working Women and Its Effects on Turnover Intentions by Elif Baykal, Erkan Soyalp, and Rahime Yeşil show just how much of an indictment this is of women in positions of power.

It breeds an uncomfortable work environment because it is viewed as an abuse of power. Alpha women, research reveals, prefer interacting with fellow high-ranking women. They are less likely to spend time with their subordinates. Women at the top of the food chain would also rather be described as possessing masculine traits such as being more careeroriented and rational as opposed to being perceived as emotional. Such women do not identify themselves with other women and distance themselves by focusing more on their careers. This tends to happen in environments where gender inequality is embedded as a practice. And, unsurprisingly, it sends women walking right out the door.

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Queen Bees tend to promote or mentor other men as opposed to fellow women and tend to perceive younger women as threats. This gets in the way of sponsorship as well. The junior females suffer poor leadership seeing how they do not have an advocator in the boardroom or in the presence of power.

In turn, this impacts job satisfaction, and creates conflict because the Queen Bee rips apart the harmony. In turn, this creates an environment where diversity does not thrive. Unexpectedly, employees exposed to the Queen Bee reported more anger, sadness and anxiety more than they would with a neutral leader.

The Queen Bee Syndrome has a lot of academic support. First documented in 1973, defined by C. Tavris, G.L. Staines, and T.E. Jayaratne, it offers up an explanation as to why women find it more stressful working for a female boss more than a male boss. One of the first studies in South Africa was in 2011.

It explores the Queen Bee, finding her present in corporate environments that are traditionally male dominated. Carol Anne Travis, however, says she regrets ever coining ”such a catchy phrase” to describe very complex patterns in a world without a corresponding term describing such male behaviour.

Here is the thing.

Some consider the Queen Bee Syndrome a myth. For starters, a survey

by American think tank, Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) showed that having women in the C-suite actually increases net margins by a significant amount because companies with more female executives make more money. In 2020, only 37

her vibe

ARTICLE by

CAROL ODERO

Fortune 500 CEOs were women, a number considered as being an all-time high.

Signs of a Queen Bee include but are not limited to isolating subordinates, refusing to acknowledge a subordinate woman or give her due credit, creating a hostile or competitive work environment, and making others feel inferior.

Women are expected to be helpful and warm, and if they are anything but, says The Conversation in The Immortal – And False – Myth Of The Workplace Queen Bee state they are perceived negatively. Where men as managers are seen as strong leaders, women are seen as problematic. Context matters. The article, like the white paper, does not dispute the existence of the Queen Bee. Instead, they attribute it to a ”reaction to marginalisation.”

It continues ”When organisations are not inclusive, women are more likely to experience value threat and therefore more likely to avoid supporting other women.”

What then, is the solution?

In a survey of 350 executives, Sophia Zhao and Maw-Der Foo found two very doable solutions. ”What we need to do is to nurture an environment where men and women are treated equally. When we have more women in the system, especially in the higher echelons of the organisation, a woman leader advocating for other women will no longer be seen as favoritism or nepotism.”

Another part of the solution relies on what creates the context in the first place.

Building a diverse and inclusive work environment. Men need to do this because when they champion diversity and inclusion, they are not penalised. ”In fact… male leaders who demonstrate diversity-valuing behaviours were perceived as being more competent and received higher performance ratings.

Involving men in the diversity campaign can prove to be a winwin for all.” www.cioafrica.co | AUGUST 2022 | CIO Africa Magazine | by dx⁵

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ARTICLE by

STEVE MBEGO & KEVIN Namunwa

What’s Trending The Latest News From The Continent

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the round-up

Tecno To Include Finance App In The Camon 19 Series Phones

Kenyan Government Goes For Ai Powered Platform For Crop Monitoring

Smartphone manufacturer Tecno is preparing to launch the Tecno Camon 19 series globally and there has been a lot of talks about the features that the new smartphone will bear.

Among unique features that Tecno will bring to the market is Tecno Wallet. The firm has been able to do this through partnerships with third party financial institutions. Tecno wallet will be a payment wallet and finance app built for its devices and integrated into the Camon 19 series of phones.

The Tecno wallet will allow users to make easy and secure payments for a range of services including money transfers, airtime, data, bills, and shopping.

It aims to build a digital and financial hub and lifestyle platform that aggregates products, services, and merchants from across the market, allowing Tecno users to transact, access credit and enjoy exclusive rewards and promotions as soon as they unbox their smartphone.

Tecno Wallet will be available for download on selected existing device series and will come pre-installed on new Tecno smartphones, including the upcoming Camon 19 series set to be unveiled in June 2022. The wallet has pilot launched in Nigeria in May, and roll-out to Kenya in middle of June. The future launches will include Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda, Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal in the second half of 2022.

According to a 2022 global study conducted

by VISA, more than 40 per cent of consumers have already embraced cashless transactions or will only use digital payments within the next two years. Additionally, 59 per cent of small business owners stated they plan to exclusively accept digital payments within the same time frame. ”As the consumers around the world transition from cash transactions to digital payments, Tecno Wallet will be a trusted tool that empowers every Tecno user to enjoy ultimate convenience

The government of Kenya has chosen Agrvision to provide AI powered technology to aid in developing a nation-wide unified platform for crop monitoring and yield forecasting. This technology by Agrvision is powered by both satellite imagery and artificial intelligence.

The Agritech firm has signed an MoU with the Directorate of Resource Surveys & Remote Sensing (DRSRS) for a five-year strategic partnership plan. The MoU was signed by Deputy Director of DRSRS Charles Situma and the Chief Operations Officer of Agrvision Oscar Mwai at the DRSRS head office in Nairobi opening a direct engagement between the two institutions on the implementation of a road map for a Nationwide crop forecasting and monitoring system in Kenya.

For a long time, the agricultural sector in Kenya has been need of a technological platform that can aid in the social and economic development of agriculture and forestry sectors in Kenya. Charles Situma has lauded the technological development saying it is crucial to the Kenyan Agricultural and Forestry sectors. ”As the official institution advising the government of Kenya on matters related to remote Sensing

and Geographical Information systems(GIS) and gathering of data on the environment and natural resources around the country , DRSRS entered into this strategic collaboration with Agrvision to work together with an Agri- tech expert in developing the right digital tools and usage of advanced data collection and analytics technologies that can help the agricultural sector and decision makers in the country, have full visibility and data driven decisions that enhance food security programs to achieve better sustainable results,” Situma said.

The Agricultural sector, including crops and livestock, is one of the most important sectors in the Kenyan economy with around 30 per cent contribution to the GDP. It is the main source of livelihoods for the many Kenyans in terms of food security, economic growth, employment creation, off-farm employment, and foreign exchange earnings.

However, the sector is extremely vulnerable to climate change largely due to the increasing temperatures, changing rainfall patterns and extreme weather events with poor agricultural practices, low quality inputs and lack of access to knowledge.

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the round-up

Africa To Have Its First Smart City Project, Silicon Delta

Here’s What Apple Is Bringing You With iOS 16

Africa will have its first smart city after Nigeria’s real estate company Bamboo Real Estate and Construction Limited has announced plans to develop its flagship smart city project-Silicon Delta. The Real Estate firm is a subsidiary of the Bamboo group of companies.

Apple has now released the iOS 16 which introduces a plethora of new features that have excited the market.

Planted in Port Harcourt, the Rivers state capital, and fully powered by technology, the project is a smart, green city where innovative and creative minds can live, work, play and create. The new project seeks to help redefine living conditions and technological advancement in Africa and is expected to be completed by 2030.

Commenting on this development and vision, the Chairman of bamboo Group, Mr Oseyomon Ighodaloh, underscored the need to aggressively invest in ”futureready” smart accommodation to meet up the everincreasing demand of housing, especially remote workers. ”Nigeria, especially the southern region, is in dire need of a future-ready community that drives growth, and fully powered by technology where business-friendly governance, policy and regulatory systems are all in place to encourage the remote-work lifestyle,” he said.

Described as creating Silicon Delta, Ighodaloh noted that the project was designed to provide an oasis of unprecedented technology and world-class infrastructure that incredible Nigerian talents deserve and need for greater innovation.

He further stated that the project was consummated in attempt to solve the challenge of lack and shortage of quality and conducive accommodation that has led many to leave the shores of the country in search of an environment that works and supports their ideas and businesses, leading to brain drain. ”The company has further gone ahead to initiate the process of acquiring over 370,000 square metres of prime land towards delivering on the mandate,” says Ighodaloh.

By setting a standard in Nigeria, the project will build a community of people who are passionate about innovation and ready to storm up new ideas that would put southern Nigeria on the global map.

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Let’s have a look at the features that Apple has promised to bring with the new iOS 16, including a complete redesign of the locked screen and improvements to Messages, Photos, and Maps.

One of the most noticeable features from the presentations was the lock screen which is eventually getting a makeover. The new interface will allow Apple users to completely customize their screens in a way that is evocative of Apple Watch faces. This is also similar to Material You, the new design guidelines announced with Android 12 in 2021.

With the new operating system, it will be possible to customize both the font and the color of the time display.

A little effect that inserts the time behind the subject immortalized in your photograph might help photos in portrait mode. It’s also possible to set the wallpaper to change automatically numerous times a day.

Notifications will now appear at the bottom of the screen and can be hidden with a swipe down, rather than being lost permanently as they are currently. iOS 16 promises to take things a step further by including filters for each setting. You can see only messages from authorized contacts in Messages or tabs by switching to a mode. To quickly switch between modes, you can designate a Concentration mode for each locked screen.

Even though iMessage is one of the most popular messaging apps on the market, it lacks some capabilities compared to its competitors. Apple addresses some of these flaws by allowing users to modify and delete delivered messages.

Apple has upgraded voice dictation, which now includes automatic punctuation during speech recognition. By selecting a block of text, you’ll be able to transition from typing to dictation automatically. The keyboard will always be visible on the screen for greater versatility when dictating.

Ben Bottelberge, Data Analytics and AI Channel Sales Leader for East and West Africa, IBM

theAdvertorial round-up

How Organisations In Africa Have Embraced AI to Dominate Their Industries There is a lot that can be done with AI. An organisation that wants to be on top has to be able to infuse AI into their business strategy and operations How do organisations in Africa scale Al usage?

For organisations targeting market leadership or enhancing competitiveness in their industry, using Al is critical. The challenge is that they don’t know where to start or may think ‘we are too small’, ‘we aren’t ready’, etc.

However, every journey starts with the first step. In the case of Al, we have four: Collect, Organise, Analyse, Infuse.

Collect means ensuring all data has been gathered, whether structured or unstructured. For a retailer this means gathering data from client transactions, social media or simply conversational history.

Next is to Organise the data, in order to have clean and actionable data. In the case of a bank, if I have three separate touchpoints, first time introducing myself as Ben Bottelberge, second time as Ben Omondi Bottelberge and third time as Ben Omondi. The bank must have systems that are intelligent enough to understand these three are the same person, not three different people.

Once organised, you can now effectively Analyse. The objective of analysis is to get actionable insights, then making relevant decisions. So, if the bank sees that Ben tends to buy match tickets for Manchester United, then the bank see’s transactions from a Man Utd retail shop, guess what? Ben is a Man Utd Fan. So when the bank has a Man Utd promotion, Ben is the correct audience and you now have a better understanding of your customer for a more personal engagement.

Finally, with all the required structures in place, organisations can now start to Infuse Al. This means making the systems work for you. Whereby Instead of having these structures in place then facing bottleneck where someone

must manuallv approve, instead give the AI rules. This means instructing the AI on what decisions to make once it’s collected relevant data, then let the AI do the work.

By following the Collect, Organise, Analyse and Infuse steps, a company can scale the Al ladder to become a data driven and Al powered company.

What are the key trends in Al to watch out for?

AI is everywhere, we just don’t know it or how it’s being used. This is how leading companies or innovators dominate their industries. However, the trend to be concerned over is ‘Ethical use of AI’. For example, has the organisation received your consent for data to be used by AI? Does the AI have a slight bias e.g. if Ben applies for a loan, he must satisfy 7/10 requirements, but Bernice must satisfy 8/10 requirements. This will inevitably result in a bias because more men will access loans than women. Such bias must be monitored, evaluated and rectified frequently.

How can you ensure AI is trustworthy?

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It must be Transparent. This means people must know their data is being collected, why it’s being collected and how it will be used.

It must be Explainable. So, at any point if a decision is audited, there must be a clear justification for how it established this outcome.

It must be Fair. As mentioned before, sometimes the system may develop a bias so must frequently be evaluated and realigned, to ensure fair results.

It must be Robust. This comes in two forms as the systems must be sturdy and powerful enough to manage the volume and complexity of data as well as being secure against hacking or manipulation.

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It must have Privacy. Which tie in with Robustness and can’t be emphasized enough. People, information and data must all be protected.

Which key problem affecting Africa can be solved by AI technology?

Instead, which problem can’t be solved?

In Agriculture and AI can be used to evaluate historical weather trends and consumer demand patterns, to guide farmers on best vegetation for most lucrative harvests and minimal wastage.

Financial and regulatory bodies can control and stop fraudulent activities, through real time monitoring while learning the fraudulent patterns to protect peoples hard earned money.

It can also be used to improve service delivery in contact centres to reduce long ques e.g. ‘You are 10th in line… 9th in line… 8th in line…’ eventually wasting valuable time before even speaking to an agent. Instead, some of the load can be shifted to an AI powered virtual assistant providing instant and quality responses at only 10% of the cost compared to if handled by a human agent. Allowing human agents to deal with the high value interactions that may require more of a ‘human’ touch.

Overall, in Africa we are no strangers to Rationing (e.g. Water or Electricity rationing), strangely this can even happen after heavy rains and flooding.

We need to deploy the correct tools to ensure adequate planning, execution, storage and distribution of our resources. We have talented people and great leaders, let us empower ourselves by having the right tools in place.

Ultimately, AI is not replacing people, rather people who use AI will replace those that don’t use AI.

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ARTICLE by

CAROL ODERO

A Doctor & A Coder Walk Into An H.R. Firm The audacity of a doctor and a coder has built SeamlessHR, a company that knew how to prepare for funding and can break down what it means to have BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goals).

Dr Emmanuel Okeleji has lost his French. It is, he observes, a complex language. One must use it or lose it.

Rather like his medical knowledge. But more on that later. Paired with Deji Lana, a coder whose pedigree dates to the mid-90s, the CEO and CTO (Chief Technology Officer) at SeamlessHR respectively are in Nairobi to suss Kenya for an expansion.

CTO: I think in the FinTech space Nigeria is a bit different. A bit unique compared to Kenya. Most Kenyans have to be innovative around mpesa while in Nigeria, people can work on their own platforms. Because of that, financial inclusion is something I think mpesa has solved in Kenya.

CEOs and heads of IT departments such as CTOs or CIOs must learn to play well with each other. Each organisation has its own dynamic. Either way, both the day-to-day grind and the overarching mission and vision of the business need tech and collaboration.

These are almost always behind the scenes interactions. Okeleji and Lana bring their professional relationship to the fore, and I get to watch a C-Suite conversation in real time demonstrating digital transformation.

CEO: We started out in 2005. Depending on how you count. This is our 3rd company together. So we built one company before this, and started this one in 2012, and we were doing something else - a jobs aggregator – like a Google for jobs. We run it from 2012 to 2017. It did not go very well because unemployment in Africa is tricky. It is not easy to monetise where people don’t have money. Job seekers don’t have money so you can’t take money where there is no money. In 2017/2018 we begun to change to what is now SeamlessHR.

Why is it, do you think that Nigerians attract so much funding?

CEO: I think Kenyans raise money too.

Not as much as Nigerians.

CEO: I think you are right. But Nigeria’s population is 4X your population, is a large addressable market which is what investors look at, and there are more customers, more engineers, more businesses …

There’s just more.

How long have you been in your roles as CEO and CTO?

I understand that Lana is an original geek.

CEO: Yes. The original geek. The OG. In my case, I am an entrepreneur now.

My background is in medicine. I was a doctor, then I left medicine in 2013. We have been partners since 2005.

Your family didn’t have an intervention when you announced that you had left medicine?

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CEO: Yeah, there was. There were people who asked if I was sure about what I was doing. Everybody’s fine now.

What made you decide to move specifically to HR? CEO: When we started the job site, our mission statement was to help people in Africa to become more productive and successful. The way we interpreted that we help them get jobs because there was a lot of money in the continent but, it was hard to monetise that skill. We went back to strategy and with that mission statement asked ourselves, ”how can we still help Africans to become productive and successful?”

What’s in our mission statement now is to help businesses to optimise their businesses so that they can become productive and successful.

We hired more people in such a way that was sustainable and profitable.

By automating HR processes. We were able to get more resources. The journey continues.

You got funding in January this year.

What are your plans with the funding?

Are you planning to expand to other countries in Africa and what brought you to Kenya?

CEO: This is our second major funding.

In the first round we raised $2.1 million, while in 2022 January we raised $10 million. We are expanding our team to be able to continue invest in our

i.t.leadership customers across the continent. We are expanding across the region. We have Kenyan operations which covers East Africa; there is South Africa which will also cover Botswana, Namibia. We are now investing in embedded finance.

CTO: On the product side, maybe I will speak more on data science with the consistency of data, which is super important, so we are looking at how to optimise within data privacy act and regulations and give better insights to our customers. Provide thought leadership, let them know what is going on in the organisation and across the industry and continent.

You have done three businesses together. What is your professional relationship like? If Lana needs to buy tech, does he need your approval or can he simply go off on a tangent all his own?

CEO: What we have tried to do, and continue to do, is build an institution.

We are friends, but everything is legally done. We have a real corporate government structure and a real board of directors. There is proper organisational design where there is a CTO and CEO; where the paperwork helps the institution. There is proper organisational design where there is a CTO and CEO where the paperwork flows. There are many decisions that he will take that I have no say on. There are people below him who make decisions I don’t need to know. We are designed such that what is my business doesn’t get to him and what’s his business doesn’t get to me. We have a very complementary structure. I can’t write code to save my life. If you kidnapped me and told me to write code, I’m dead.

That makes the two of us.

CTO: It’s not that hard.

Says he who started writing code in 1997…!

CEO: I focus on the business such as investor relations, fund raising and entrepreneurial kind of things, and Lana focuses on the product and the www.cioafrica.co | AUGUST 2022 | CIO Africa Magazine | by dx⁵

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technology side.

CTO: There is that partnership, there’s that friendship and there is the mutual respect right from the beginning.

Something that sets corporate governance. We want to do things properly. We have always had proper structure, who reports to who, accounts, who does this and who does that.

CEO: We have our fights. Today we had our fourth fight, and we are celebrating…

You mean ”SeamlessHR Not So Seamless After All?” How did you create these structures because it sounds like you’ve had them all along. We are currently going through the transition from CIO Africa to dx5 and are going through building this. It’s not exactly the easiest place to be. How did you do it?

CEO: It’s a work in progress. Even now we are going through a transition. We are changing and restructuring things.

There was a time everything worked, and I knew what was in place. With the fundraising, there is a new level.

Launching in Kenya is not the same thing as settling ourselves in Nigeria.

We are trying to structure everything off the back of Series A, but when it comes to Series B, new structurers would have to happen. What helped us is that first of all, we wanted to be an institution.

Our goal wasn’t just to make money and live like ballers. That was not our goal. Our goal was to build a proper institution.

We also had mentorship. People on our board have built multinationals.

We were accountable to them from a corporate governance standpoint. They didn’t just demand excellence from us.

They taught us how to do it. Once these foundations were laid, it just became a foundational thing to keep.

CTO: We are also very agile. While we have a mentorship on how to build structure, we still remember we are a tech start-up. We don’t want to build a bank or such, but we are always experimenting. It’s not just reports all

through otherwise things develop a bottleneck and you can’t get through.

We have discussions on how we look at the organogram.

Would you describe your organogram as fluid?

CEO: I’ll qualify that because it might be misconstrued. It is not set in stone. The thing with transitions as you will see with dx5 is that you must change your structure. What is called growth for a start-up is that you are adding things to the organogram. If we moved to the US or Europe, we would have to restructure with the Europe team communicating with the Nigerian team. I think organic is a better word.

How do you deal with different cultures?

East and West are different as, well, East to West!

CEO: If you have decided to do something you just get it done. You’ll face challenges. If this is what you must do, then you must do it. We can’t be weaklings and say, ‘let’s just not go.’ People who conquer the world go despite challenges and we are just selling software.

Well, technically you are conquering the world one software after another.

CEO: We are here to stay. Besides, Africa needs to come together, and we must scale things across. We must build big institutions in Africa that work for and empower Africa. We try to work with locals. SeamlessHR is African. We don’t see ourselves as a Nigerian company. We are very proud of it being African. When we make a move towards diversifying our leadership, we want to have different senior roles from different countries so that the leadership of the company looks like a Pan African leadership.

CTO: About the culture and the DNA of the company – this is something we worked on when we started the company – define the culture. In Nigeria, the way the Igbo behave is different from how the Hausas behave. And that is just tribes. With our organisation,

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i.t.leadership there are some 19-year-olds in the company, older people, different people with different mindsets. Some people want to know break things like code and scatter this knowledge, others want to know then be conservative with it. We define the culture and know what it is we want to be known for and make it an inclusive culture with diversity.

CEO: One last thing. Something we are very keen on as a culture is me asking myself, ‘what kind of a company would I love to work in?’ ‘How would that company be run?’ And we documented that. What challenges people and gets in the way of building a great company is removed. For instance, in communication, we give candid feedback to people in a way that feedback won’t be used against them.

We do have a great company. We really do. Everybody knows what is good.

How big is your C-Suite?

We try to automate everything. For us to build an institution, things have to be automated as much as possible, so we are always looking for ways to do that. If you need human beings to do everything, then you are really not a technology institution.”

CEO: We use the Porter’s Value Chain as our strategic framework. On that value chain are leaders on all points.

We have a line of senior managers who lead every department. I would say at the centre about 10 people oversee the entire institution. The team is over 160. We are scattered across nine countries. We have a hybrid structure so people WFH or work from the office depending on wherever is best for them.

We have teams in the US, UK, Canada, and Sydney (usually hard to get into meetings because of the time zones).

Do you think your C-Suite is ready for digital transformation?

CEO: We are a digital company. We were born on the web. Everything is online.

All you need to access us is a browser.

We were born in the cloud.

I already anticipate the answer to go a particular way but what is more important? The technology or the people?

People. If you think about it, it’s the people.

Why are people more important?

CEO: It’s people who build the

technology. Technology is lifeless. It is the people that matter. People who can do great things. We are the founders, and we want to build an institution that is going to outlive us. It requires the ideas of all those people to take it where we can’t take it. The idea of 2,000 people – because we think our team will be as big as that in future, or more – is more than the ideas of one person, no matter how brilliant one person is. We create a culture where they can do their best. One of us is all of us. Humans can innovate beyond technology. People are important in our company especially because of the SaaS innovation.

Lana, when you’re buying tech, what is it about people that prompts and inspires you to make that purchase?

CTO: First, we look at our culture, diversification, how many people can use it, what will this technology do? How is it going to improve? For example, we don’t buy a software just because it is the latest tool. I look at what is in the organogram and the value chain and ask – what will this technology actually solve presently? We could easily say this software is one of the best in the market so it will add value. But we have to look at the people, where they are instead of buying the tech. If not, it will be a waste of money.

CEO: We try to automate everything. For us to build an institution, things have to be automated as much as possible, so we are always looking for ways to do that. If you need human beings to do everything, then you are really not a technology institution. I make decisions in technology in that regard. Money also counts. There is technology we can’t acquire now because it is too expensive.

Automation. Automation. Automation.

Automation.

CTO: One of the things we also do is transparency and communications.

If we don’t then things disappear into silos, and I wouldn’t be able to have access. But with automation, information flows. Everybody can have access and there is transparency.

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Of course, people want to be paid well. We are not the highest paying company in the world. We can never be. That is why culture is such a big deal. We do pay well.

If you are a good person, do you want your people to have money to live or do you want to be ballin’ while everyone is suffering?

CEO: We use Notion. We don’t use Windows. The reason we use it is Notion is the automation of documents. Everyone had access to documents people are altering. If it is online, you can have access to it anywhere in the world.

This is generally a challenge across the board. How do you actually break silos and have departments flow into each other?

CEO: It’s a work in progress. Human beings just like to form groups naturally. As the organisation gets bigger, and you’re trying to do structure, silos form. One of my biggest goals as CEO is to create and continue to work on a communication system in the organisation. It gets more complex as the organisation gets bigger. Imagine having a million employees. I can’t imagine what that communication must be like. It’s crazy.

That’s like communicating with an entire city or in some cases, country.

Gambia is 2.1 million people. That’s a nation of people. We are still 160 people – not 1.6 million! We continue to work on it. Notion, our organogram and the way it’s working, management team, how we communicate to employees – we have Seamstars Live which is like a magazine we produce 40 www.cioafrica.co | AUGUST 2022 | CIO Africa Magazine | by dx⁵

i.t.leadership every quarter. It updates everybody on what is happening with staff across the country such as who has had a baby, who got promoted, got a certification; generally achieved something interesting. At least everybody in the company knows what’s going on. We have our townhall meetings every two weeks and employees get together to talk about things like who has joined the company, the older employees answer questions – basically just the human side of the organisation. We try to document everything so that people know what’s going on.

You are. At your core, something of an HR company. You must know a few secrets on how to retain talent and keep your employees happy. Do tell.

CEO: Culture. Human beings want to work in a place they enjoy. We ask ourselves ‘what kind of company would we like to work in?’ We want to work.

Work is part of our lives. If the place is a good place; there’s no drama, we’re not going to work with our hearts beating and worried, you’re not afraid of anything and you’re free, you enjoy your work, the company is responsible and keeps challenging you, looking for ways to make you better. It’s like working on a relationship. We really work hard to build a great organisation that people really love work in. That is extremely valuable. At the end of the day, everybody wants to live a good life in a place where they are welcome. People love to work at SeamlessHR. I can say that for free.

Of course, people want to be paid well.

We are not the highest paying company in the world. We can never be. That is why culture is such a big deal. We do pay well. If you are a good person, do you want your people to have money to live or do you want to be ballin’ while everyone is suffering? For the first few years of this company, both of us weren’t getting paid. Staff were getting paid because it is important. People need to be able to earn a living to be able to enjoy their lives. It is important to me that people live a good life.

CTO: To add to that, which is also part of culture is we are interested and invested in their growth. When someone joins the organisation, which is one of our core pillars is that you have to be curious. We had a developer who joined us and within six weeks said he had learnt more than he had all those years as a developer. We showed him round, gave him stuff to do, asked him about his goals and all that stuff. Our people leave and come back. There’s one who left, the money was better – CEO: Double what we had been paying him – CTO: But he said he wasn’t going to grow there. While at SeamlessHR he could see his career growing.

CEO: We have that a lot. People leaving and coming back. A lot. When people are leaving, we let them. It’s not a jail. I wouldn’t want to be held back if I wanted to leave an organisation. It happens all the time. I think it speaks to culture. If you really are good, and really want to be good to people and you’re just good folk, people know it. They see it, even if you don’t say it. If you’re bad, people know it even if you say you’re good. People know the difference. But I think we built a good company that people would really like to work for.

Are you hiring?

CEO: Yes, we are hiring. We have 20 positions to fill.

What do you have to do with your business to get it funding-ready and attractive seeing how you have gone through this twice.

There are things investors are looking for. If you build a good institution, people who have funds are looking to invest in good institutions. We are always very conscious over what investors are looking for. And there are different things investors are looking for at different stages. If I was Equity Bank, what I’d be looking for as an investor there would not be the same as what I am looking for at SeamlessHR because there would be different stages.

We got Series A funding. I know what investors in Series B want to see. How? I speak to them. Then I take note of it. There are guys on my board who are investors. Those things go into our goals and KPIs as a company and we are always trying to achieve those things.

Do you think you got your funding at the right time?

CEO: You see what’s happening now?

Markets are crashing and we already have money. We can continue to pay salaries comfortably for the next two years. We would still have raised because we are a healthy company even now.

There are companies that – let me qualify that – founders who get funding and become confused. They suddenly don’t know what to do with it or they did not expect that much funding. Were you ready for your funding?

CEO: There are such companies. I blame them and their investors. If I give you money, I need to know what you’re doing.

Any last words or something you think our people need to hear?

CTO: I think SeamlessHR is a true SaaS company in and out and we are here for the long haul. From a product technology point of view, we are trying to build a new product. We want to build something that outlasts us, and we are proud of our product. We use our product ourselves. We love our products. We brag about our products.

What is important about our product is that our customers love using it.

CEO: I’ll just piggyback on one of the things he’s talked about. We are not a flash in the pan. We are building an institution. I know I keep saying institution. This is not a group of individuals who want to do something by themselves. We are building new things across the board. Check again in two years’ time. We will have raised $1 billion.

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ARTICLE by

MICHAEL MICHIE

The Dark Side Of Digital Transformation 42 www.cioafrica.co | AUGUST 2022 | CIO Africa Magazine | by dx⁵

thinking aloud The flogged horse that is digital disruption has been the backbone of a lot of conversations (over eight years for me). It’s been here longer than that and does not seem to go away. As consistent as change, digital disruption will always be a current topic, changing meaning drivers, blockers, use cases and balance. It appears an evolution is more suited to it.

Digital evolution has seen various focal points for adopting technology - from age of the internet to the birth of metaverses - and a whole lot of in between. Trying to understand digital disruption can be simplified to ”merely a change from the normal state that is catalysed or introduced by technology.”

An uncomplicated explanation always work well in the beginning, allowing everyone to own and contribute. The result of digital disruption illustrates that there is a lot more that is complex to define and rightly so.

Digital transformation has had its fair share of definitions over the years. At each key stage, it has been defined by an industry or a technology. When the next ”new” technological breakthrough comes through, we have another round of transformations across various industries.

While trying to understand the value and true impact of digital transformation, it is difficult to not be biased and weighed down by mainstream explanations and even a lot of oversimplifications.

How do we really measure technology adoption? How do we compare disruption across industry? How do we decide who got the short end of the stick when it comes to disruption?

We can compare the new with the old.

If a business hasn’t changed, then it has no adoption. We can compare new technologies against what is currently in use by a business. We might compare disruption across industry players perhaps by comparing new products or services, improvement in effectiveness and efficiencies. What about the short end of the stick? Maybe it result in a loss

”Merely a change from the normal state that is catalysed or introduced by technology.” of market share, lack of new products or services, shutting down business, complex and expensive transformation.

The answers are clearly subjective even with a means of valuation. For all the good we have seen with digital transformation, we can tell when it has been bad, or wrong be it in execution, impact, or consequence. However, wrong, and bad are very different – and they are not synonymous.

We are interested in the wrong, the unwanted and sometimes, the unwanted consequences of digital disruption. The kind that is detrimental.

Bad can be defined for this purpose as piss poor, it just didn’t meet any goals be they planned or unplanned.

Unsuccessful in a single word.

Wrong means digital transformation that is harmful; harmful to our mental health, our environment, our species, or structure of society. This means that the digital transformation did take place, but the results are not sunshine, roses and butterflies. This can lead to addictions, depression, mental health issues or dare I say, suicide. Take, for instance, social media apps with the infinite scroll and great AI behind them.

These apps can keep users glued to their screens for extended periods.

Research has indicted Instagram, for instance, with its FOMO (fear of missing out), can easily lead to depression, self-esteem issues, self-loathing,

anxiety and in some extreme cases, suicide. For society, it hides the fact that bad things happen, painting a mostly colourful outlook. Social media has also been weaponised through leveraging disruptive technologies such as deep fakes to spread misinformation, fear and hate.

Away from social media, other industries have seen digital transformation push their growth, but at significant cost. The financial services industry has little in their transformation to show by way of financial literacy. Though in all fairness, it does have a lot to show for with financial inclusion and access to credit.

Unchecked, this could lead to huge debt cycles within communities, poor financial planning and debt traps lasting for years.

Gaming is an exception to this wrongfulness.

Some games steal sensitive data and sell them to improve algorithms that can frequently be used to target consumers or circumvent consumer protection. Some games have gone as far as to rooting your addiction in a state of fear.

A lot more could go wrong with digital transformation. Artificial intelligence (AI) might present itself to us in the future in the form of The Terminator or HAL (Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer) from A Space Odyssey.

Preventing the abuse of technology is one action taken to address such dark possibilities. When innovation comes in trusted spaces, it is hard to see the wrong.

Our focus shouldn’t just be digital transformation anymore. That is not enough. Creating a wrong floor and wrong ceiling to measure out digital transformation can impact our lives.

We have to be able to fit everything in one room, floor and ceiling included.

Successful digital transformation is no longer just a measure of revenue but also how well we also prevent them from having the wrong impact.

www.cioafrica.co | AUGUST 2022 | CIO Africa Magazine | by dx⁵

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ARTICLE by

STEVE MBEGO & KEVIN Namunwa

The Africa Fintech Summit Round-Up The 6th Africa Fintech Summit, 22 and 23 June 2022, was a gathering of some of the finest minds in the fintech space in Africa. It was two days of networking, knowledge and idea sharing and good food at Radisson Blu, Upper Hill with a detailed, high-level agenda.

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the africa fintech summit 2022

www.cioafrica.co | AUGUST 2022 | CIO Africa Magazine | by dx⁵

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Africa Fintech Summit Lives Up To Its Expectation One of Africa’s biggest financial technology events, the Africa Fintech Summit 2022, lived to its expectation. It was home to brilliant ideas not just from the speakers, panelists and moderators, it also blew trends wide open.

The hybrid event, which happened at The Radisson Blu Hotel, Upper Hill, Nairobi, gathered top fintech experts and business decision-makers from around the world to explore the new and emerging technologies, trends and new business models that will drive the future of fintech across all industries. The event gave the attendees the much event opportunity to network over lunch and coffee breaks.

The keynote speaker at the event, Jerome Ochieng, PS, Ministry of ICT & Innovation, described the rise of Fintech in Africa as revolutionary and asked the continent’s banks not to be left behind of the changes.

A panel discussion at the summit

”Banks should focus on customer experience and customer data and analytics to ensure they’re not left behind in the new Fintech world.

Banks need to focus on improving the customer experience through digital channels, mobile apps and bots. Banks must also invest in building up their customer data assets so that they can better understand where customers’ habits,” he said.

He also lauded the President Uhuru Kenyatta for not signing the controversial ICT Practitioners Bill 2020. dX⁵ (formerly CIO Africa) CEO, Kelly Bentley, lauded the event saying it unites the African fintech experts spread across the globe to discuss key issues shaping the sector. She also thanked sponsors and attendees.

A panel discussion at the summit

Fintech is a $500 billion industry that is growing rapidly: analysts predict it will reach $10 trillion by 2025, with mobile money underwriting much of this expansion. The rise of Fintech has been global in scope: fintech investments have doubled since 2013, with new regional markets emerging as powerhouses for innovation like Kenya and Nigeria.

The Africa Fintech Summit 2022 was sponsored by leading technology companies including VMware, Incentro Africa, Dimension Data, MetaMap, Finserve, Computer Learning Center, Paix, Trans Business Machines (TBM) and Cellulant. Partners for the event are Little Cab and Craft Silicon.

Delegates follow proceedings at the summit

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the africa fintech summit 2022

Driving The Future Of Banking Through Open Banking embraced the sharing of banks’ APIs but it’s not good for the banks which didn’t know that the data didn’t belong to them in the first place. For instance, when a bank’s executive team sits down to develop solutions for their customers, they assume they know what the customer wants.

With the sharing of APIs, the customer’s behaviour and interactions tell the bank what kind of services they need to make available to the customer and give the customer a choice of what they would prefer. ”Bankers have discovered that we need to be able to use data to determine how to best serve the customer. For instance, you can determine credit scores based on the behaviors of the customer and how they have treated previous loans.

Determining whether the customer will be able to repay the loan or not,” Lanre noted.

anre Bamisebi, the Group Director IT & Operations Director Equity Group Holdings Plc

In the financial technology space, banks and fintech continue to embrace the idea of open banking. This was one of the key topics of discussion at the Africa Fintech Summit, how open banking can be used to drive the future of banking.

Open banking is a technology-enabled approach to financial services that utilises aggregated and authenticated data, connected APIs, to give consumers more ways to consume their financial data while also making transactions more secure. In his presentation about open banking, Lanre Bamisebi, the Group Director IT & Operations Director Equity Group Holdings Plc, said that in open banking it’s important to note that the data belongs to the customer and

not the bank.

Lanre further said that there has been a paradigm shift with open banking that has basically changed the ownership right for customers’ data. Open banking and sharing of APIs has made the banks realize that the data belongs to the customer. Data privacy laws have also made the customers aware that they are the owners of the data. ”For a long time, banks have assumed that they own the data but now there has been a paradigm shift and customers are now the owners of the data. The customer can tell us how he/she wants to use the data,” he said.

This is good for fintechs that have

Banks maintain vast archives of customer data, and the revolution in Big Data over the last decade has allowed some banks to realise the benefits of that data internally. For the mid-market, we see a persistent gap in these banks’ abilities to leverage their own data. Without closing this gap, these banks will remain in a defensive market position as the pace to open banking quickens.

Open banking has the potential to increase existing revenue streams and add new ones while expanding customer reach for financial institutions. It can also create revenue-sharing ecosystems, where incumbents give customers access to third party-developed services while profiting from a subscription or referral basis. Open banking relies on a bank’s ability to leverage its data, highlighting an urgent first step in any banks’ journey.

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How Cellulant Has Managed To Thrive After Ken Njoroge’s Exit him. The organisation still has life because the people in it understand the DNA and understand what we stand for, which is ‘follow the customer, follow the money’,” she added.

Harry Hare, dx5 Chief Content Director & Chairman and Faith Nkatha Country Manager, Cellulant

Founded 18 years ago by Ken Njoroge and Bolaji Akinboro, Cellulant has grown to become probably the most successful fintech in Africa. The fintech has also managed to pull off what most startups in Africa have struggled with; they have outlived the founders.

Faith Nkatha, Country Manager, Cellulant talked about what gives Cellulant the difference in the market in a fireside chat with Harry Hare, Chief Content Director & Chairman. During the chat, she pointed out that the main difference is that Cellulant focuses on the customer, and it is a culture that has been instilled into the staff. ”We always say that ‘when you follow the customer, you follow the money’,” she said, ”over the years, we have been innovating because we want to be at the heart of what the customer is feeling and wants.

We always want to be ahead of that.”

She further added that the Njoroge instilled a culture that has been existent within the organization such that anyone who comes in understands what the company’s vision is. Ken Njoroge, the founder, instilled a culture that is still existent at the company even after he left. ”When I came in, and Ken was talking to me, the vision he was talking about was not his, it was Cellulant’s. The DNA is not Ken’s. It’s Cellulant’s DNA and it’s fed into every fibre of the organisation.” ”The organisation has had to live past

Cellulant is now present in 35 countries from across the continent and are still projecting to grow further. With expansion, there also come an issue of dealing with different regulation from all these different countries.

Faith also spoke about regulation and how Cellulant have been able to align their model with the different regulations. She said that the brand in regulation is the same and regulators behave in a certain way.

Considerations For A Payment Modernisation Strategy As we go through the aftermath of the disruption that was caused by COVID-19, we realise that a lot of things have changed. That is digital transformation, fast tracked digital transformation.

Digital transformation has accelerated our movement away from cash towards digital payments, and the payments modernisation trend shows no signs of slowing down. Companies are racing to move towards modernizing their payments.

”The foundation of the business is very important, because it has the company built in a specific way that will be aligned with regulation. It is also important to have a good relationship with the regulator so that you learn about the trends in the space,” she noted.

At the Africa Fintech Summit, VMware’s Lorna Hardie, the Regional Director for Sub Saharan Africa advised companies on what they need to consider for a payment modernization strategy.

According to Lorna, modernising payment is all around modernising your app which is the way you engage with the user.

”It is also important to invest in protecting the company. Have people in your team who are managing compliance and regulation, this is infrastructure and structure that gives you an easier job aligning with the regulator,” Nkatha added.

”In everything, we always want to prioritise the customer. We want the customer to have a seamless experience. In modernising payments, the focus needs to be the customer and how convenient it will be for the end user,” she said.

Investors have also played a key role in the growth of the fintech organization and Faith recognizes that the fact that Cellulant has had ground investors is key to its growth. These investors are aware of the environment and provide support to help the company grow in the environment as it is at any given moment.

Banks need to deliver a digital, customer first experience that will, in the end, get the trust of the customer. This means providing an array of services to the customers. Lorna suggested that these companies need to provide a one-of-a-kind experience. In giving this experience, a lot of things are key. Developments such as digital payments, mobile banking, contactless transactions, e-signing, and digital lending all make the experience more convenient for the end user.

”We have also made clear the vision we have and when an investor comes in, they know what we are working towards and know how they can plug into the vision. They also know what to expect from their investment as well,” she explained.

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Hardie went ahead to give a case example of VMware and how they assist

the africa fintech summit 2022 companies strategize their movement to a modernized payment system. She said that typically talk to their client about several steps towards digital-first banking.

Lornie Hardie, The Regional Director for Sub Saharan Africa at VMware

The first step will be to become future ready, fully resilient, and to support a multi-cloud strategy. A company will need to leverage the public and hybrid cloud to meet new business needs and demands. It is important because it enables you to run your environment in the cloud, with the same consistent management, security, and automation approach.

Why Banks Should Embrace APIs Banks should embrace Application Programming Interface (API) technology to meet the demands of the modern customers who now value premium digital experiences.

to customer needs. When you have a well implemented API ecosystems, you will create efficiency across the organization’s processes such as data and security,” he said.

An API is a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other. In essence, it is the messenger that delivers your request to the provider that you’re requesting it from and then delivers the response back to you.

Moreover, having an effective API architecture in system will enable banks to collect data which they can use to improve their processes. APIs are used to extract data between two systems

that are communicating. ”With APIs in place, you will be able to keenly monitor what data is coming in and going out of the organization.

With this information, organisations can make better use of the data. Any process that is not reliable or is time consuming can be greatly improved by an API,” he said.

According to Imran Sumra, Co-Founder and CEO FinSense, banks that still rely on legacy systems often face great challenges in meeting the needs of the modern customers. ”The problems banks are facing today is relying on legacy systems which are not agile enough to meet the ever-changing needs of the modern customers. Banks that still maintain legacy systems, have challenges with recent technology skill sets and a huge background of innovation requests which they cannot meet. This places them at a competition disadvantage with emerging fintechs,” said Sumra.

By adopting APIs, Sumra stated that banks could make their processes much easier and efficient. ”Banks today are struggling with efficiency. Some of their processes still do not adapt

Imran Sumra, Co-Founder and CEO FinSense www.cioafrica.co | AUGUST 2022 | CIO Africa Magazine | by dx⁵

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ARTICLE by

ROBERT YAWE

hard talk

Mining The New Oil When it comes down to it, Kenya does have data. The problem is getting people to look at it and use it to make decisions or even projections.

A few days before penning this article there was a major drop in the value of the technology stocks on the NASDAQ, the US equivalent of our NSE, which resulted in Apple losing its position as the most valuable company. It was replaced by Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil producer.

It was quite ironic that when the world is obsessed with green gas emissions, which is mainly caused by the burning of fossil fuels such as crude oil, is selling like crazy especially after the lull of the COVID lock-down period.

What this means is that even with access to petabytes of data on the effects of fossil fuels, we seem to be unable to use it to convince the masses of the need to reduce its use.

I had assumed that the lock-down had given us time to reflect and work towards a new reality, but it seems it was not to be as we have reverted to our old ways of burning fuel like it was about to become extinct.

Could this new reality be a sign to those of us who have been celebrating data as the new oil that we have not yet become efficient enough in processing data into useful enough information to convince us to get off crude oil?

The speed with which we moved back to polluting the environment was perplexing. An indication that we have been selling more of a hype narrative than one which is data driven. We have been selling a ”heart story” similar the one on how computers would turn the office paperless resulting in the saving

of the Amazon Forest.

On the latter, we forgot that there exists a multi-trillion-dollar industry behind the sheet of paper and that it extends from tree seedling nurseries to entire power plants with a myriad of humans in between. Could we have made the same mistake when demonising fossil fuels?

Closer to home, the belief that data is what drives our economies is now questionable. But more so because we have not taken the time to share the data. Instead, we have been regurgitating information we gleaned from a slide during a closed industry event. It is time that we started having more broad-based conversations on the future of business.

In a similar vein, Kenya is currently in the throes of her national election, which takes place every five years with the last six elections increasingly utilising ever more technology. The

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immediate to last election had an interesting court demand that requested the literal opening of a cloud server.

As I listen to analysts discussing the forthcoming elections as well as making wild predictions, it does not escape me that none of them has actually looked at the historic election data we have accumulated over the past 20 years, but instead base all their analysis on some sample report by so called pollsters.

Apart from the election data, we also have in machine readable form, the past three census data available to anyone who cares to access the relevant authorities website.

If we were truly a data savvy nation, most of those giving predictions would be data scientists and not political scientists. Until that is the case, I will look at the commodities indexes first before the technology ones.

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Catalyzing C-Suite Engagement in Digital Transformation DIANI · MOMBASA 23rd-25th Nov 2022

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Submit your entries for dx100 Awards before the 30th September 2022 www.cioafrica.co/dx100-awards-nomination/

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