FSB CIO scoops 2014 Visionary CIO Award

Pretoria - The Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the Financial Services Board (FSB), Tshifhiwa Ramuthaga, has been named Visionary CIO of the Year 2014. The prestigious award recognises an executive who has demonstrated visionary leadership in using technology to support and drive their companies to be more innovative and strategic.

The award is presented by the IITPSA (Institute of Information Technology Professionals South Africa) in association with ITWeb, Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) and Gartner.

“For me, this award represents the hopes and dreams of the people in my village and the young kids of Matangari primary school. The first time I ever saw a computer was at varsity, that can’t be their experience today, I'm committed to ensuring that, and I’m very grateful to my team at the FSB, and the business at large for their support,” said Tshifhiwa Ramuthaga.

Ramuthaga sees the FSB’s ability to embrace her vision as a key ingredient to her success as a CIO. She further adds that she has an amazing team that is focused and committed to her vision.

In her role as CIO, Ramuthaga has brought in a customer centric approach in the way the FSB, the regulator of the South African non-banking financial services sector, delivers its regulatory business through ICT. She developed the organisation’s ICT governance framework and strategy, which improved and stabilised the ICT environment in the organisation and allowed for more effective business continuity and partnership.

It was her ability to influence business executives on the value information technology brings to their business and stakeholders, turning around IT from a support function to a business partner, which impressed the judges.  Her IT journey is marked by her willingness to break down what does not work in order to rebuild new systems in response to the business demands of the day.

Ramuthaga has been in the ICT industry for over 18 years. She worked for Telkom for six years where she grew from programmer until she was appointed Senior Manager ICT Infrastructure Availability at the age of 26, the first black female to hold a senior management position in ICT. She has held notable positions in institutions such as Standard Bank.

Ramuthaga holds a Masters degree in Information Technology from the University of Pretoria. She also holds an MBA from GIBS where she received the top student award for the elective ‘Leading others through storytelling’, which she attributes to her ability to convincingly explain and convey complex concepts to both business and IT using everyday examples they can relate to.

“Congratulations to Tshifhiwa. This is indeed a befitting recognition for her. Through her visionary leadership, our IT systems have improved significantly over the past few years. This can be attested by all the stakeholders we serve in the financial services sector, including our staff, who have cast their votes during the adjudication process. These votes serve as recognition of her hard work and dedication to ensure that our IT systems help improve the operations of the FSB,” said Adv Dube Tshidi, Executive Officer of the FSB.