Chief Information Officer: Data and Applied AI

With over 100 years of rich history and strongly positioned as a local bank with regional and international expertise, a career with our family offers the opportunity to be part of this exciting growth journey, to reset our future and shape our destiny as a proudly African group.

Job Summary

To formulate an IT business model and strategy in alignment with the overall organisational strategy; contributing to strategy formulation and enabling organisation wide adoption.

Job Description

Technology Strategy Formulation and Execution

• Identify strategic role players and stakeholders and engage all stakeholders, role players and industry forums to understand changes to strategy, regulations, and markets.

• Set and communicate a long-term strategy that clearly articulates strategic targets and metrics to align the delivery of the business strategy against the strategic objectives, targets and shareholder expectations.

• Set and oversee the execution of the business strategy, with enablement capability across the Business Unit.

• Translate the broad business lines strategy to drive the alignment of and integration of strategy across the value chain.

• Develop and execute a comprehensive digital transformation strategy aligned with the bank's overall objectives, ensuring effective utilisation of technology to drive innovation and enhance customer experience.

Customer Primacy

• Build and sustain a culture that aligns to the customer experience to deliver the target customer experience and financial performance.

• Contribute as a key ExCo member to the overall agenda internally and with external stakeholders, ensuring that the business line's agenda is appropriately managed and reported to all requisite stakeholders, in particular the Group ExCo.

• Display, portray, and translate a deep understanding of market shifts and competitive positioning from a capability insights perspective and devise plans that will support prioritisation efforts.

• Provide business insights based on market trends, competitor offerings and global best practices as it relates to the business line.

• Enable the bank to meet evolving customer needs, drive operational efficiency, and achieve sustainable growth.

Sustainable Growth

• Influence, integrate and guide but also meet the business growth ambitions.

• Partner with executive bodies (ExCo’s, business lines and functions internally) to align on strategic objectives. Translate objectives into delivery pipeline requirements to ensure insights are appropriate and that adequate business ownership and buy-in are created to realise overall strategy.

• Through delivery and execution, perform an active role with the mandate to increase the business line's overall contribution to Group performance.

Client-Driven Innovation and Change

• Provide input into the overall client experience.

• Stay abreast of industry trends and role players and ensure that business line is well positioned to provide competitive and industry-leading products and services.

• Strategically influence the development of products and services that meet or exceed customer needs and expectations, creating stakeholder value.

Leading Talent

• Accountable for enabling people and culture aligned to brand value.

• Act as a second-level escalation point for all grievances raised in the functional area.

• Determine and analyse attestation, training, and development needs for direct reports, and ensure that these requirements are met.

• Ensure appropriate reward and recognition practices for all employees within the team.

• Ensure that poor performance is addressed, and relevant corrective actions are implemented.

Operational Effectiveness

• Define the business line projects and track and manage the process, understand trends and dynamics.

• Drive strategic reporting requirements.

• Drive the development and tracking of tactical plans and scorecards and take corrective actions where required.

• Orchestrate the necessary process to facilitate regular strategic alignment between Group and the ITO function.

• Provide leadership in engagements with regulatory bodies and represent the area of accountability in key industry associations and forums where applicable.

• Use insights and knowledge gained from high-level reports and analyse complex comparative information to create scenarios to direct strategic intent.

• Lead the design and implementation of technology initiatives, including process engineering, architecture and engineering, quality engineering, and fraud architecture, to optimise operational efficiency and mitigate risks.

• Oversee and drive research and development of special projects to explore emerging technologies and identify opportunities for business growth and improvement.

• Establish and maintain robust technology design standards and framework to ensure consistency, scalability, and security across Absa's digital ecosystem.

• Monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of digital transformation initiatives through KPIs and metrics, providing regular reports and insights to leadership teams.

• Strategically design and implement digital solutions, optimise processes, enhance technological infrastructure, and ensure the bank remains at the forefront of innovation.

Digital & Cloud Adoption

• Deliberately seek opportunities to digitise, automate and implement solutions for customer primacy, innovation, and operational effectiveness.

• Utilise resources and encourage the use of new technology (software products, apps, websites, etc.) to their fullest potential, and derive maximum value from a digital process or solution.

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams and stakeholders to align digital transformation efforts with business requirements, fostering a culture of innovation and continuous improvement.

• Assess and select the best-in-class cloud and on-premises architectures to support the bank's digital transformation goals, ensuring optimal scalability, reliability, and cost-effectiveness.

• Drive the technology strategy development, ensuring alignment with industry trends and best practices, and advising senior leadership on technology investments and priorities.

• Champion a customer-centric approach by leveraging data analytics and customer insights to enhance Absa's digital products, services, and overall customer experience.

Good Governance Risk and Compliance

• Drive the development and implementation of integrated corporate governance and compliance frameworks throughout the function.

• Influence the implementation of effective internal controls system and corporate governance in the functional area of accountability.

• Collaborate with regulatory and compliance teams to ensure adherence to relevant data protection and cybersecurity regulations, mitigating risks associated with digital transformation initiatives.

Data Monetisation

• Consider the explicit use of data and its inherent value to explore opportunities, plan and guide all decisions for execution.

• Use data to obtain quantifiable economic benefit for the area of accountability, leveraging internal or indirect capacity to make measurable business performance improvements and inform decisions accordingly.

Education

Bachelor's Degree: Information Technology

Absa Bank Limited is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer. In compliance with the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998, preference will be given to suitable candidates from designated groups whose appointments will contribute towards achievement of equitable demographic representation of our workforce profile and add to the diversity of the Bank.

Absa Bank Limited reserves the right not to make an appointment to the post as advertised.