Discover Deloitte CTO Abdul Kajee’s full-circle journey with the auditing giant – a place where he first cut his teeth in IT, and whose culture drew him back after a brief departure.
Abdul Kajee, the newly appointed CTO at Deloitte Africa, grew up in Lenasia, south of Johannesburg. ‘Newly appointed’ is a loose term, as he’s returning to familiar territory.
“There’s just something about the people and culture at Deloitte that will always pull you back,” he says.
He describes Lenasia as a place with limited resources, but what it makes up for is breeding innovative thinkers who have had to make the most with the little they have. So it comes as no surprise that Abdul is quite handy and enjoys the odd DIY project. He even services his own car on occasion and digs his hands into the soil while gardening, one of his other favourite pastimes.
Abdul is also mad about nature and enjoys hiking in his spare time. He’s had the pleasure of experiencing the gruelling 42km (five-day) Otter Trail in the Tsitsikamma National Park.
Like many of his peers in tech today, Abdul didn’t initially set his sights on IT. Instead, he pursued electrical engineering with a focus on light current at a technical school. His transition into the digital landscape came later, spurred by his mother’s suggestion to take an IT crash course while he was job hunting. “As a youngster, I was always fascinated by the mechanics behind things. As a result, I broke more things than I actually fixed,” he jokes.
Fortunately, Abdul's mother’s advice paid off, leading him to land a job at a small IT firm subcontracted by the government. While the experience was valuable, progress felt slow to Abdul. After two years, he sought new opportunities and eventually joined Deloitte as a desktop technician.
Little did he know that this move would evolve into a career spanning over 20 years with the consulting firm, give or take a year or two when he stepped out of the company.
“Deloitte has just been an enriching experience for me,” he says. “I thrive in environments where I can fix things while learning new things at the same time and that’s exactly what Deloitte provided me.”
Mad about cyber
Learning by fixing, as Abdul puts it, was exactly what drove him to want to know even more, and he did exactly that, educating himself and completing as many certifications that could help him grow and excellence in the IT field. However, in the pursuit to educate himself more, Abdul really took a keen interest in cybersecurity.
It was an opportunity to join a team at Deloitte that worked in packaging applications and software developments that introduced him to cybersecurity – such as patch management: the cyclical practice of identifying, classifying, prioritising, remediating and mitigating software vulnerabilities.
“I started paying close attention to a colleague of mine who worked on firewalls, closely watching how he worked and asking for his assistance with firewalls. My knowledge of firewalls started to grow and it wasn’t until another colleague left the cybersecurity division that I eventually got a chance to work on firewalls myself,” he explains.
“I’ll admit that I was a little too eager to start. It was a cart before the horse scenario because to properly start working on a firewall, one needs to start with understanding networking, a step I skipped at the time,” he adds. Abdul dedicated the next couple of years perfecting his cybersecurity skills in and and out of the Deloitte network.
The ‘smell’ of the place
Some years back Professor Sumantra Ghoshal delivered a speech at the World Economic Forum, highlighting the role of corporate environments and management’s responsibility in fostering a positive workplace. Abdul’s long tenure, departure, and eventual return to Deloitte exemplify how a strong organisational culture can draw people back. When a company gets its culture right, as in Abdul’s case, employees are eager to return without hesitation – driven by the organisation’s atmosphere, or as Prof Ghoshal called it, “the smell of the place”.
“Deloitte is a big organisation, from the Waterfall office to the Waterfront, with each department having its own culture. But if I focus on my division, I’d say it’s always had a very supportive culture throughout my time here,” Abdul reflects.
“I’ve consistently received support from my first, second and third senior managers. My colleagues have been equally supportive, and we grew together like a family – not perfect, but a group you can always count on.”
Abdul acknowledges that everyone experiences places differently and that company structures evolve over time. However, having left and returned to Deloitte, he can confidently say that the company truly looks out for its people.
“You go to work and talk about your family and when you go home, you talk about the people at work. That’s the culture I’ve come to enjoy at Deloitte,” he concludes.
