Ashwin Frankie is CEO and co-owner of Knowledge Factory, an ISO/IEC 27001-certified data and technology company.

Frankie has more than three decades of experience in IT. Having begun his career at Toyota SA in the late 1980s, Frankie accumulated a wide range of IT skills in the automotive IT production space. Later he joined BCX, heading up the McCarthy Motors server team as a principal engineer.

Moving on from BCX in 2012, Frankie joined Kagiso Media as head of IT. In 2019, he took part in the buyout of Knowledge Factory (a subsidiary of Kagiso Media), and now serves as CEO of Knowledge Factory and CIO of Kagiso Media (in an outsourced capacity).

TechCentral asked Frankie a few questions for its IT Leadership Series.

What does your company do?

Knowledge Factory is a data and insights business specialising in B2B data enrichment and customer segmentation.

What do you see as the IT leader’s top priorities in 2023?

Enterprise governance, risk and compliance is one of the top priorities for many IT leaders in 2023. This is to ensure that cybersecurity measures are implemented into the organisation. Another top priority is cloud adoption with the ability to leverage cloud to scale business value proposition. And third is skills development to ensure critical skills are introduced into the organisation to drive digital transformation and product development.

Who do you most admire in business and why?

I am unable to single out any one individual in business that I admire the most and this is purely because of the impact several individuals have had in my professional career over the last 10-15 years. I would not be where I am today if it were not for those individuals who made the decision to “pay it forward”. I admire those individuals who get up each morning and make a deliberate decision to push forward come what may. Those are the true leaders I admire the most in business today.

How do you attract and retain talent?

Human beings no longer want just job security or an income to make a living, even though those things are important. Our grandparents and parents strived for those things and in most instances would give a single company 30-40 years of their life for that in return. What people want today is to feel valued, appreciated and to experience a certain lifestyle. In my opinion, the key is to ensure that we meet those requirements to some degree. While we challenge staff to be creative, innovative and we reward them in return, they will shine and choose to stay because the end result is what most people want today.

If you could go back and give your 18-year-old self one piece of advice, what would it be?

Life is not all fun and games. Yes, it’s important to have a well-balanced life, but make time to set goals and to ensure that there are tangible actions being done regularly that work towards achieving those goals.

What’s your favourite productivity hack?

To surround myself with people that are smarter than me. That way I am able to get a lot more done in a reasonable space of time. There’s a saying that resonates with me: “If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.” We’re in this journey as a team, a team that is in it for the long-haul. And this does not only apply to me and the business I operate in, but all of us as South Africans and as global citizens.

What occupation (other than your own) would you like to try?

I used to be so afraid of public speaking, so I said to myself that if I had to ever try something new (other than IT) I want to be a motivational speaker to share my life’s lessons and life journey with others. But knowing me, I will include lots of technology into the discussions.

Where do you see the technology industry heading in the next three to five years?

I have been in the technology space now for just over 30 years and when I look at the next three to five years, I see a massive shift technology across all sectors. I see many industries being disrupted – from automotive to healthcare to finance to education to agriculture. However, the space that will be most impacted is fintech. With the possibility of a collapse in the fiat currency system, we might see a shift to a central bank digital currency system that will open the way for several new technologies coming into play across the globe. This will then change many aspects of daily living from payment gateways, to goods and services, investments, forex and the markets in general. We have to get ready for these new technologies within finance.

What is one book you’d recommend to our audience and why?

The Excellence Dividend, by Tom Peters. I feel that the author gives business leaders simple, actionable guidelines that could be implemented into our businesses to be successful. — (c) 2023 NewsCentral Media