International & National Multiple Technology Leader Award Winner; Dr Denisha Jairam-Owthar is currently the Group Chief Information Officer for the Council for Medical Schemes. She won TOP women in S.T.E.M Award 2024 Nationally, TOP 200 Global CIO’s in 2024, Young CIO of the year 2023 etc. She has held a myriad of senior roles in Technology managing at a strategic level the entire value chain of ICT: such as CIO roles & Group CIO roles, across 5 different industries being: Taxation when she was at SARS, Banking when she was at Absa bank & Barclays London, Investment banking at DBSA, Utility Billing at the City of Johannesburg , Higher Education at Stellenbosch University & currently health at the Council for Medical Schemes. She was the prior Chief Director of ICT at the University of Stellenbosch, SA where she led this prominent university in it’s ICT digital transformation journey. She has an array of diverse experience at the helm of leading transformational ICT. She has shown throughout her career that ICT is agnostic of industry, from being at the helm of technology in a various sectors making a significant impact such as: taxation to banking, to investment banking to utility billing systems to higher education systems & now in the health industry.She is a multifaceted technology leader brave, versatile & an energetic Group CIO/CTO that ventured into many varying industries showing her unrelenting braveness.
She sits on Boards of Directors of other organizations using her strategic tech skills to uplift & optimize these organizations. She is also a Practicing Professor at some of South Africa’s credible & highly ranked tertiary institutions in Digital Business & Artificial Intelligence. She also holds Honorariums at reputable universities on specifics in the ICT profession. She is highly respected in the ICT industry known for the impact she makes at her work; for the engagement that she has at strategic board level in ICT, her keen interest in empowering young people & driving the ICT profession forwardly through universities both nationally & globally. Her qualifications: Doctorate in ICT, an MBA with specialization in Digitization, & BCOMPT Accounting Sciences. Her certifications include: Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Cybersecurity, Digital Transformation, Data Science & AI. She has kept herself abreast in the technology field by some of the worlds most respected technology institutions’ such as: Harvard USA, MIT USA, Berkely USA & recently the University of Austin Texas USA in Computer Science AI & Machine Learning.
