With over two decades in the world of IT, Phila Msizazwe, CIO at the Automobile Association (AA) of South Africa, has strategically risen through the ranks and says he has enjoyed every moment of the journey.
Phila Msizazwe describes himself as always being a ‘techie’ and laughs, saying that he will still get under a desk to fix a cable if needed. Overriding career guidance, which he said failed him, he followed his intuition and grabbed the opportunity being offered to black school graduates to obtain IT training.
He spent a year embedded in systems engineering and development, guided by formative advice from his first supervisor: “Be a sponge and absorb everything before specialising. And don’t view technology narrowly, the industry extends far beyond computers.” For Phila this was a mind-blowing moment, as he had always thought of IT as fixing desktops, laptops and printers – it would be the beginning of his enlightening and progressive career journey in IT.
With his heart set on one day becoming a CIO, Phila intentionally gravitated towards various IT managerial roles that would specialise his IT knowledge and develop leadership skills. Eventually he decided to move from Durban to Johannesburg for the career opportunities that the City of Gold offered. Despite having to leave family behind, he doesn’t regret it. “My life moved in the right direction,” he says.
Here he thrived on new, exciting IT projects and international travel, however he still desired to be exposed to more complex, C-suite level projects and so branched off into consulting. It was another move in the right direction, which he describes as ‘paying off in dividends’, moving him closer to his ultimate career objective of becoming a CIO.
When Phila finally took up his role as CIO at AA, he had already been doing similar IT projects so he could hit the ground running. And even now that he’s reached his goal as CIO, he emphasises that he doesn’t want to become complacent.
Despite his IT team being 100 percent outsourced, Phila describes them as being a strong team who fall into three pillars: infrastructure, service deliverables and technical resources.
“I see myself as a business enabler and someone who needs to understand the core of the business to ensure that we operate optimally.”
Moving with the times
AA may be a 95-year-old organisation, but it is making progressive and impactful strides in the mobility space of South Africa. It has evolved to offer more than just traditional emergency roadside assistance, but through strategic collaboration with other automobile industry players, strives to create an ecosystem for safer mobility for South Africans with views on roads, public safety, traffic, and even exploring alternative options of everyday commuting to reduce traffic on the roads.
The other significant update to the AA’s many offerings, including free services
available to non-members too, are now at South Africans’ fingertips in a comprehensive smartphone application – My AA. The app is a mobile
panic button, and it offers immediate access to emergency response to members of the public, contributing to public safety.
“IT is an enabler of all this growth and technology has enabled us to digitise our services,” explains Phila. “Through technology we are able to empower contact agents with instant data from one unified view so they can assist members in an emergency in a very short time. That’s the power of technology.”
Business at the AA is divided into membership and corporations. With corporates being some of AA’s big clients, another of Phila's roles is to ensure that when his team set up systems, they are compliant and data is secured. “This keeps me busy!” he laughs.
And when out of office
For down time, Phil loves reading a good book with one of his all-time favourites being Quiet by Susan Cain, which he still finds himself slipping into his travel bag when heading off on vacations.
Describing himself as an introvert, this book resonated deeply with him, and he often recommends it to others. And when it comes to books, he says quite firmly that he doesn’t want to read a digital version, but an old-school hard cover because he loves holding it in his hands and the smell of its fresh pages.
He’s also a family man who loves spending time with his kids.
