{"id":30399,"date":"2019-11-26T10:18:08","date_gmt":"2019-11-26T10:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/?p=30399"},"modified":"2019-11-26T10:18:20","modified_gmt":"2019-11-26T10:18:20","slug":"interview-with-old-mutual-ltds-chief-information-officer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/2019\/11\/26\/interview-with-old-mutual-ltds-chief-information-officer\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Old Mutual Ltd’s Chief Information Officer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Despite being a global financial company, Old Mutual Limited is still proud of its African roots and how it continues to serve millions of customers. Johnson Idesoh, the company\u2019s Chief Information Officer, tells Intelligent CIO<\/em> how he has been at the forefront of the firm\u2019s success and the challenges he has faced.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Old Mutual Limited started in Africa in 1845 and rapidly developed into a recognised brand across much of Southern Africa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the years, its business expanded internationally and 20\nyears ago was listed on the London Stock Exchange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nMarch 2016, it was decided that the best way forward for the Old Mutual Group\nwas to separate its four strong businesses into independent, standalone companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main aim of the strategy \u2013 called Managed Separation \u2013 has\nbeen to unlock and create value for shareholders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnson\nIdesoh joined Old Mutual Limited in 2014 and is responsible for all of the\ncompany\u2019s IT services. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Could you highlight some of the previous\npositions you have held and what they entailed? What were the main\ntechnological challenges of these positions?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I joined\nOld Mutual in 2014 as Chief Technology Officer, our major challenge was\nchanging the paradigm for technology from \u2018a back office\u2019 function to a\n\u2018customer facing and enhancing\u2019 function.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prior to Old\nMutual, I was with Aviva for nine years where I held various roles. But I am\nmost proud of the fact that I was part of a small group who got Aviva focused\non digitalising customer and employee experiences between 2011 and 2014, which\nfor an insurer with hundreds of years of history was a major win.  To this day, Aviva is a leader in digitalisation\nin the industry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is your managerial style?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I focus on\nexplaining purpose, which is a basic human need, and on providing safety for my\nteam to act with clarity of purpose. Ultimately, I believe leadership is about\ncreating belief.  Belief in a purpose, in\na strategy and confidence in our individual and collective ability to achieve\nthat strategy and purpose. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are the main challenges of your\nrole as CIO?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Building belief\nthat we can make the changes ourselves and that we can, with the strength of our\nbrand and the 13 million customers who trust us with their savings and\ninsurance, have access to the best capability anywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What advice would you give to aspiring\nCIOs?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Focus on the\nspace between outcomes and technology. Your specialism comes from using\ntechnology to change customer and employee experiences for the better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the most important lesson you\nhave learnt in your career?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Be humble and\nnever be complacent.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What have been the main IT achievements\nof your organisation in the past year?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have materially improved IT service. We have deployed customer solutions in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost we could, using the latest generation of technology.\u00a0 We have won innovation awards and have touched the lives of well over 300 school kids in South Africa though technology immersions we continue to sponsor. We have some of the strongest partnerships worldwide with some of the leading technology companies on the planet.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have you done any implementations that\nyou can talk about?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are now\ndeploying a pioneering, fully online solution to our advisers and customers in\nSouth Africa and Namibia. It takes the process of reviewing financial needs,\nrefining recommendations and deciding which protection solution meets our\ncustomers\u2019 needs entirely online. There is no paper involved at all. It is\nbetter from an experience perspective, gives customers more choice and is of\ncourse unlike any process that involves paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You have\nchosen Amazon Web Services (AWS) as your preferred cloud provider. Can you\nexplain the relationship you have with them?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

AWS provides us with\nthe depth and breadth of services we need to innovate like a startup, with the\nsecurity expected from Africa\u2019s oldest and most trusted financial services\ncompany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With AWS, we can\nrapidly experiment at lower costs and push the successful experiments into\nproduction faster, allowing us to improve the experience for existing customers\nand attract new ones. AWS understands this high level of customer focus, which\nis why we see them as far more than just a technology supplier. We are working\nclosely with AWS to not only serve our customers, but also support the\ndevelopment of technology skills in Africa by offering ongoing cloud training\nprograms for employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What technologies are you looking to\ninvest in?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robotic Process\nAutomation, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do you see the technology landscape\nevolving over the next few years?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As rapidly if\nnot more so than it is today; it will become even more commoditised and\nscalable with the value manifesting itself in how to better enable customers in\nall industries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do you see as the biggest cyber\nthreat facing organisations in Africa?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brands are made\nand ruined by cyber security and beyond that the unethical use of\ninformation.  Cyber criminals are increasingly\nsophisticated so we (individuals, companies and governments) need to be aware,\nvigilant, have sufficient protection and knowledge from a legal perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are the main IT challenges in\nAfrica at the moment?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In one sense no\ndifferent than anywhere else, but in another very different because of the\nrelative economic impact it can make for the better, developing world-leading\nskills in technology. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite being a global financial company, Old Mutual Limited is still proud of its African roots and how it continues to serve millions of customers. Johnson Idesoh, the company\u2019s Chief Information Officer, tells Intelligent CIO how he has been at the forefront of the firm\u2019s success and the challenges he has faced. Old Mutual Limited […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":30400,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[565,6,399,19,9059],"tags":[732,386,11821,619,676,440,95,11818,11394,392,1028,11820,11389,1340,453],"class_list":["post-30399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking-finance","category-insights","category-more-news","category-regional-news","category-south-africa","tag-amazon-web-services","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-aviva","tag-aws","tag-blockchain","tag-chief-information-officer","tag-cyber-criminals","tag-intelligent-cio","tag-johnson-idesoh","tag-machine-learning","tag-namibia","tag-old-mutual-group","tag-old-mutual-limited","tag-robotic-process-automation","tag-south-africa"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30399"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30401,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30399\/revisions\/30401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}