CSSA announces personality and visionary winners for 2011

The IT Personality Award was presented by the CSSA in conjunction with ITWeb, the Gordon Institute of Business Science and Gartner Africa. The award recognises a person who made an exceptional contribution to the local ICT industry over the past year.

The judges found Bohbot has a sharp focus on rethinking the nature of an organisation and its relationship with employees. He believes EOH's people are fundamental to the way the company does business - their professional fulfillment, work-life balance, and their ability to contribute equally as part of a diverse workforce are all priorities.

Bohbot's journey with EOH has spanned small beginnings to a top-performing JSE-listed corporate, employing 3 500 people. "If I could change one thing about the IT industry, it would be to create much closer relationships with government. The government and the IT industry should really work together," he says. "I'd like to involve businesses more in the socio-economic challenges of the country - things like job creation and people development are major challenges in the country and I think that our industry can do more."

IT is all about people

Visionary CIO winner, Macfie, is passionate about business, people and innovation. She believes in the strategic value of IT and its ability to transform an organisation, and has demonstrated this as CIO at Southern Sun Hotels since 2000. Her portfolio recently expanded beyond IT, to include management of various strategic business projects.

This award recognises an executive responsible for IT strategy in an organisation who has demonstrated visionary leadership in using technology to grow business. Macfie says she actively seeks technology solutions that support and enable the company's vision. She would like to change the perception that IT is not people-focused. "IT is all about the people - it's about changing people's lives, it's about using technology to make the world better and yet there's this perception that we're not 'people people'."

"We need to move away from trying to sell technology solutions to selling business solutions. Technology is there as an enabler, but we need to talk business. We need to talk about how using technology is going to make a difference to people's lives, whether that's the employees, guests or customers," says Macfie.