Eugene will compete with other IT leaders for an award in November.
Eugene van der Merwe, CIO at AVI, a JSE-listed consumer goods holding company, including fashion brands, beverages, frozen foods, and personal care products, has been nominated for the 2023 CIO Awards.
Eugene is an experienced IT executive and international business leader, strategist, and senior executive. He has more than 15 years’ experience in stock exchange-listed companies in the food products sector (centred on FMCG market).
Eugene has extensive international experience, having worked in Europe, North America, and Southern Africa, designing and implementing strategic technology strategies and charting a clear future vision, ensuring that technology investments support the company’s long-term goals. He’s also been a key member of several acquisition and disposal deals, performing broad and detailed technical due diligence for the mergers and acquisitions team while also serving as a key business partner to the executive and leaders in order to build consensus and collaboration across all business functions.
Knowledgeable about the manufacturing and FMCG industries, Eugene can provide insights into corporate design, data management, cybersecurity, and digital transformation. He is passionate about developing long-term profitable growth strategies, promoting healthy organisational culture, and successfully implementing ISO/27001 and payment card industry data security standards (PCI-DSS) for financial switching, and data security in a variety of businesses.
Eugene was an enterprise architect and systems engineer at BCX, an executive for technical application development and strategy at USC Solutions, and infrastructure services executive at AVI before becoming chief information officer. He graduated from the University of Sedona with a bachelor’s degree in metaphysical science (B.Msc). He also participated in a number of international and local leadership development programmes and workshops.
