Instead of enthusing about the brilliance of new technologies, Zanele Nyoka, head of Information Services at South African Breweries (SAB), talks about how people interact with them. She talks about how a developer should assess what someone requires before imposing something on them, and how she will assess the skills of everyone in her 80-strong team to make sure each person is in a role that suits their temperament.
Nyoka, 45, joined the company's beer and soft drinks divisions about eight months ago and believes her major task is to look after the people who look after the business at SAB.
She's impeccably groomed, with a liveliness and spontaneity bubbling beneath the chic corporate exterior. She gives quick yet thoughtful answers lit with a passion about her industry.
Nyoka grew up in a township near East London. "By township standards, I'd say we were well-placed. My father worked for an insurance company and my mother was a nursing college lecturer. She was very ambitious, always studying while she was raising us, so she gave us that can-do attitude."
A 'real' job
As a schoolgirl, Nyoka fancied a career as a cook. But her parents steered her towards more intellectual ambitions. "I wanted to be a cook in the hospitality industry and travel the world, but when I told my folks about this ambition, they told me to go get a real qualification and a real job," she says. "I had the prospectuses from different institutions so I ticked something that sounded sophisticated, like computer science."
She studied at Fore Hare University and also majored in psychology, which she adored. Psychology taught her a lot about understanding people, and she applies that skill to the use of technology in the workplace. "You need to understand people to know what they want, where they're coming from and what drives them," she says. "Tapping into these drivers helps me understand where I can place them in the value chain and how I can help them be better at what they do."
One team member may be good at articulating what the business requires, while someone else is better at building the solution, or has the right personality to lead the change management when a new system is introduced.
Her previous jobs helped to hone those people-management skills. She started as a computer programmer before moving into IT support for the Post Office.
Dealing with end-users can be frustrating, but Nyoka says it suited her. "My personality is very laid-back so it takes a lot to ruffle my feathers."
Yet that calmness isn't an attribute she's passed on to her own two teenage daughters. "When I tried to instill in my children that you don't have to be all emotional and noisy about stuff, they say, 'You must realise that we're not like you, we shout and scream, that's us!'"
You need to understand people to know what they want, where they're coming from and what drives them.
Zanele Nyoka, SAB
Her older daughter is studying business science in finance, but Nyoka didn't push her in any particular direction. "I've brought them up not to be order-takers. They know themselves and their strengths and will go out there and find themselves. I have always believed my job is to help them be the best they can be," she says.
Since entering the IT industry, Nyoka has worked for DaimlerChrysler and General Motors, been an IT manager for Eskom, and most recently spent almost six years at Barloworld Equipment. She left because it was time to learn about another industry, she says, joking that Barloworld Equipment taught her all sorts of intricacies about the mining and construction industries.
Sexism and patriarchy
The IT industry is still very much a man's world, but it has changed considerably since she entered two decades ago. Nyoka says she's never taken sexism personally, but tries to understand the context, education and perspective of the perpetrator.
"One of the things I enjoy most about my job is helping young professionals find themselves in the work environment, particularly young black professionals, because I understand the environment that some of them have grown up in," she says. "There's that whole patriarchy thing where the father has the final word or people who are older than you have the final word. In the work environment, you need to be able to question and challenge and criticise in a constructive manner without changing the status quo of who is the boss and who is the subordinate. A lot of young people struggle to say something that is uncomfortable for them and needs to change for them to do their job better. I find a lot of pleasure in helping young people find a way to address those issues in the workplace. I tell them you need to get over that 'I can't challenge authority' attitude."
Nyoka is also passionate about leadership development. Her people need to be both business-focused and IT-savvy, which is a difficult combination to master. "I'm looking forward to working with them and getting them to be on top of their game in that respect."
Another challenge is helping SAB to streamline its internal processes as the company goes global. That will include altering vendor contracts to be global instead of country-specific, and resolving the complexities of different countries having country-specific nuances.
As she drives these changes, Nyoka will stay true to her overriding belief that technology ultimately exists to improve people's lives.
First published in the April 2014 issue of ITWeb Brainstorm magazine.
Share