Britam East Africa’s CIO Jack Maina Wins #CIO100Awards 2015

The CIO100 awards is an acknowledged mark of enterprise IT excellence. It’s a celebration of 100 organisations (and the people within them) that are using information technology in innovative ways to deliver business value, whether by creating competitive advantage, optimizing business processes, enabling growth or improving relationships with customers.

Jack Maina, CIO at Britam, received his award following his leadership role in Britam’s Jawabu project, Jawabu is the company’s IT journey started in 2011 when they formulated a new strategic plan focused on driving profitability and operational effectiveness across the organization.

After the win, Maina was kind enough to take time off from his celebrations to give a few comments on how it felt to take home the award. “I feel excited and humbled by the recognition for the work we are doing in IT, it’s a team effort by Britam,” said Maina, “it was a strong understanding of business and knowledge of technology that got us here.”

Jawabu was designed to deliver the technology capabilities required to transform Britam to a world-class customer-centric organisation, something which Maina commented on saying “We have been successful although it is an ongoing journey.”

Launched in October 2014, this project has delivered a new era of convenience through improved business processes, enhanced structures and state of the art systems. Maina was part of the 100 honorees who received awards following a two-day CIO100 Symposium that brought together more than 300 CIOs and senior IT executives.

“We have seen very interesting submissions this year making the competition and selection of the 100 top companies and CIOs very stiff,” said Andrew Karanja, Director, CIO East Africa.

Kenya had the lion’s share of submissions and nominations followed by Uganda and Tanzania. Some of the notable companies include Bidco Refineries, Ramco Group, Kenya Power, Kenya Airways, Sarova Hotels, Commercial Bank of Africa, Pan African Insurance, Jubilee Insurance, Nairobi City Water, Kampala Capital City Authority, and DHL to name just a few.

More than 50 C-Level speakers were lined up to make presentations on technology trends and advancements for business. Some of the topics covered included Cloud Computing, Business and Enterprise Mobility, Cyber Defense, Big Data and Analytics, IT Leadership and IT Commoditization.

Victor Kyalo, the CEO, Kenya ICT Authority, was awarded the CIO100 Leadership Award for steering the transition of the Authority from the defunct Kenya ICT Board into what it has become. This included a merger of several IT-related government agencies into one.

The other award winners included: