CIO 2026 Day 1

Nontuthuko Mhlungu

Event Opening

Nickey (Nicodemus) Mannya

How CIOs can drive digital transformation across African enterprises. Balancing innovation, cost, and security in a volatile economic landscape. Key trends shaping Africa’s IT sector in 2026 and beyond.

Mandla (Basani) Mbasane

John Bosco Arends

Thav Reddy

Rising cyber threats, ransomware, and AI-powered attacks. Industry-specific security concerns for financial services, healthcare, telecoms, and government. Compliance with POPIA, GDPR, and industry regulations. Best practices in incident response and cyber resilience.

Peter Robb

Ashveer Rajcoomar

Mahendra Beharie

Multi-cloud vs. hybrid cloud strategies for banks, retailers, and manufacturers. Overcoming connectivity and infrastructure challenges in Africa. Cost-efficient cloud adoption and avoiding vendor lock-in. Securing mission-critical enterprise systems in the cloud.

Abeer Sharma

South African enterprises are entering a new phase of digital transformation - moving beyond cloud adoption to demonstrate governance, compliance, and operational resilience while scaling AI into production. Cybersecurity and regulatory compliance remain top CIO priorities, even as GenAI adoption accelerates. This executive session presents the XDO Blueprint - a pragmatic approach to unify and orchestrate Xperience, Data, and Operations into a single, outcomes-driven fabric and illustrates how Agentic AI can shift organizations from “automation scripts” to Agents of Action that executes safely, with humans in the loop. The session also addresses Digital Sovereignty in a South African context aligning to POPIA obligations (including cross-border transfer constraints) and the emerging national direction on AI governance while recognizing that hyperscalers now offer in-country cloud regions to support data residency choices.

Jenny Mohanlall C-CIO (MBA) (M.Inst.D)

Sabelo Myeni

Phumzile Hlatshwayo

Strategies to attract, retain, and upskill African tech talent. The rise of remote work and hybrid IT teams. Addressing IT skill shortages in cybersecurity, AI, and cloud engineering. Public-private partnerships in education and tech skills development.

Nickey (Nicodemus) Mannya

Gert Botha

Henny Schlebusch

Managing IT budgets during economic uncertainty. ROI-driven IT investments: How to align IT spending with business growth. Subscription vs. ownership models: SaaS, IaaS, and FinOps strategies. Cost optimization in telecoms, retail, and public sector IT environments.