CIO South Africa engaged with two leading IT executives to explore the essential skills and competencies they prioritise when identifying potential successors within their teams.
In the second part of the succession planning series, CIO South Africa engaged with José Soares, IT director at The Capital Hotel Group, and Sizwe Ndlovu, CTO at Pineapple, to learn what essential skills and competencies they prioritise when identifying potential successors within their teams.
Good communication and the ability to build rapport across diverse stakeholder groups are just some of the skills that are an absolute must for José.
“When seeking a successor in IT leadership, I prioritise individuals who excel in communication and relationship-building across diverse stakeholder groups,” José notes. “These skills are crucial for driving innovation and managing change effectively. While technical proficiency is important, I place a higher value on creative thinking and the ability to navigate complex, often ambiguous situations. The ideal candidate should be deeply passionate about technology, constantly immersing themselves in the field to stay ahead of trends.”
Sizwe, on the other hand, says ideal successors need to match the criteria not just of the work itself but also the qualities that one requires to fulfil the role.
“What is most fundamentally important is a structurally deep understanding of the company’s systems and technology as a whole within the industry and what is happening there. Equally important are the leadership capabilities to help build and direct the team to the destination it seeks to arrive at from a company success perspective,” he says.
According to Sizwe, Pineapple aligns succession planning with the organisation’s strategic goals by investing in people’s skills and expertise, ensuring that their finger stays on the pulse by embracing and adopting new technologies, platform updates, industry trends, conferences and skill sharing. “We invest in this from the hiring stage to ensure that we bring people in who are ambitious and long-term driven so that their careers grow at the same rate as the organisation,” he adds.
José takes an unconventional approach to developing and mentoring potential successors. “Here's a wild idea: we're trying to make our team so irresistible to other employers that they become resistant to leaving. Counterintuitive? You bet. Effective? Absolutely,” he says.
According to him, The Capital’s IT division is essentially running a tech talent school, where the curriculum includes ‘Advanced Problem-Solving’ and ‘How to Make Headhunters Cry 101’.
“By aligning our development with market demands, we’re building a team so skilled and confident, they could leave at any moment – but choose to stay for the next exciting chapter with us,” he adds.
From outsourcing to insourcing
José shares an interesting succession planning story, one that involved him restructuring what was traditionally an outsourced IT environment to building his ideal dream team from within the organisation.
“When I joined the Capital Hotel Group, I inherited an entirely outsourced IT function with minimal internal processes or domain knowledge,” he reflects. “Understanding the need for a strong internal team, I focused on recruiting young, motivated individuals and creating an environment where they could thrive.
“This approach has led to impressive results, with many team members evolving into specialised roles such as potential CISO, group infrastructure manager, and collaboration tool experts. The key to this success has been maintaining a culture of continuous growth, challenge, and mutual support,” he adds.
From the front end to the back end
In Sizwe’s case, Pineapple traditionally used to segregate their developers to work on certain aspects of our infrastructure. For example, the company only had developers working on the front end, some only on the back end, and others only on DevOps.
“We decided to make that change to all of our developers to become full stack developers and work across the entire spectrum of the app, which has put us in a better position regarding succession planning,” he explains.
As with any sort of disruption to what people had been accustomed to, Sizwe says that some individuals left the company to pursue other opportunities. However, this change made transitioning expertise much easier and less time-consuming, and succession was possible in those aspects.
“We are able to do this effectively due to our KPIs and monthly ‘Level Up’ conversations, which have gone a long way in reducing the skills gap. We are most definitely affected by the departure of talent from a capacity perspective, but given the above, we are very minimally affected from a skills perspective,” Sizwe concludes.
