NEWS
SAS appoints new country manager in South Africa to drive local business growth strategy
Analytics provider SAS has announced the appointment of Essie
Mokgonyana as the Country Manager and Sales Director for the brand in South Africa .
The appointment comes in line with SAS ’ s strategy towards investing in growing the organisation in South Africa driven by the market needs for advanced analytics , AI and cloud-based solutions .
Essie Mokgonyana brings more than 15 years of experience in technical roles within the IT industry , with a strong focus on sales and business development , working with clients in public sector as well as telecommunications and banking sectors .
Zafir Junaid , Regional Director , Africa and Emerging Middle East , said : “ We are very proud and excited to welcome Essie to the SAS family ! Essie is an admirable professional and , with her dedication towards delivering results and developing the teams she manages , it is not surprising that Essie has excelled in her career path . Essie ’ s background in the IT industry and experience across multiple sectors aligns well with our strategy in South Africa and Africa as a high growth market .”
Essie Mokgonyana , Country Manager and Sales Director , SAS
Mokgonyana said : “ I am delighted to join SAS – and at such a transformational time . Never before have we experienced such rapid rates of digital transformation in all tiers of society – from government to business and industry , and consumers .”
Thales to acquire cybersecurity company OneWelcome
Thales has announced an agreement to acquire OneWelcome , a European leader in the fast-growing market of Customer Identity and Access Management , for a total consideration of € 100 million .
OneWelcome ’ s strong digital identity lifecycle management capabilities will complement Thales ’ s existing Identity services ( secure credential enrollment , issuance and management , Know Your Customer etc ) in order to offer the most comprehensive identity platform in the market .
Headquartered in the Netherlands , OneWelcome provides cloud-based customer identity and access management for highly regulated industries , empowering them to securely connect customers as well as business partners to their online services .
Currently , OneWelcome protects tens of millions of European identities for lighthouse customers like Malakoff Humanis , PostNL and the European Central Bank . Thales plans to leverage this regional expertise to address the global need for enhanced identity and data privacy management .
Danny de Vreeze CEO of OneWelcome , said : “ Customer Identity – or CIAM – is a solution tailored for any organisation with a digital presence that need to securely manage external identities and provide intuitive access to their online services . We have a state-of-the-art service that is used by European customers to connect and protect millions of users . Our highly motivated team is thrilled to expand our product leadership into new markets using the global reach of Thales .”
14 INTELLIGENTCIO AFRICA www . intelligentcio . com