Sipho Coetzee

Sipho Coetzee has more than 27 years of experience in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Industry. He has a B.Sc. (Computer Science and Operations Research) and a MBA degree.

In 2012 Sipho got diagnosed with MS (multiple sclerosis) and had to take a few month’s break from the mainstream enterprise ICT business. For the last year he acted as Managing Director for Pivotel (Pty) Ltd, an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) solutions integrator for the Gated Communities, Mixed Use Developments, Business Parks and Eco / Industrial Parks. Due to health considerations and to pursue his passions for people development and creating solutions to solve complex business problems, he decided to rather do independent Management & ICT consulting and part-time lecturing.

In his 3½ years at Gijima, one of South Africa’s (SA) largest ICT service providers, his skills in Leadership and Management were utilised in his role as Account Executive for Absa. He lead a team of approx. 550 technical people delivering ICT Infrastructure Support services in close to 1400 locations across South Africa to Gijima’s largest outsource client. He motivated and lead his team to deliver the services on a sustainable and profitable basis at a rate substantially below the market while still tabling significant cost savings for the client.

In his career of over 8 years at Business Connexion (BCX), one of the largest ICT Outsourcers in SA, Sipho served in various Sales Management and Outsource Management roles. During this period he won business worth more than R940m for BCX. He put together several large & complex ICT implementation and outsourcing deals, managed them through successful transition and saved his clients substantial costs or assisted them to lower business risk and improve business processes. His major clients included Sasol, Arivia, SARS, BHP Billiton, Edcon, AngloGold Ashanti, Sappi, Metcash, Fluor, Eskom and Afgri.

Sipho had a career of over 13 years in Sasol, a very successful global petrochemical company. He did Account Management for several key Sasol IT client accounts. He also lead several teams in establishing the architecture and ICT strategy to support Sasol’s globalisation drive. During the earlier part of his Sasol career, Sipho performed various technical roles ranging from programming, database administration, database / MIS research and project management on several multi million rand projects.

Sipho has a passion for people development and creating solutions to solve complex business problems. He has the ability to motivate people and to create long lasting and mutually beneficial relationships. He is a strong but democratic leader with a very practical approach to problems and problem solving.

People development; Creating solutions to solve complex business problems; ICT; Gadgets