Bradley Coward

Bradley Coward’s career began in the technical aspects of mining in 1980, before moving into mine planning and economics. He migrated into strategic planning and IT consulting, holding positions such as group consultant for Caltex Oil SA; MD in the Computer Configurations Holdings group; group CIO for SABMiller; director of operations and services at Derivco; and, more recently, group CIO for Sappi. His keen interest in governance and innovation led to his appointment to the subcommittee of the King III Code of Corporate Governance, where he was instrumental in developing the IT governance chapter.

The IT structure at Sappi is highly regionalised, and at a group IT level, the key functional reports include group IT governance manager, head of infrastructure management, head of applications management (including global SAP director), and head of commercial management.

The strategic imperative for IT over the short to medium term will be to align itself with the organisation’s return to profitability objectives, while keeping an eye on supporting the growth when it materialises. Coward says taking a leadership stance when it comes to delivering a better IT value proposition through governance excellence is crucial for high-performance organisations.

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