When Sandra La Bella arrived at Alexander Forbes just over a year ago, she found a ‘broken’ IT department. She’d been called in as a caretaker CIO for the country’s largest pension funds administrator, initially for three months. It was only when she asked to see its architectural plan, role profiles and strategy, which couldn’t be produced, that she realised the extent of the problem. The firm was also in a state of flux: it had fired its CEO Andrew Darfoor in September 2018 after the board lost confidence in him. Seven other executives left shortly after him. But matters appear to be improving, and new CEO Dawie de Villiers said in a results announcement in December that it has ‘turned the corner’. And La Bella was part of that turnaround.

Now, one year on, La Bella has founded a proper IT organisation, and one that is bringing real change to the business itself.