Mark Harris

Mark Harris has held management and leadership positions in IBM, both locally and internationally, since joining the company in 1981.

A BSc graduate with microbiology and chemistry as majors, Mark was IBM SA’s youngest consultant engineer, working as lead engineer on a number of major accounts such as Standard Bank, ABSA, Bankorp, First National, Eskom, Telkom SA and Liberty Life. He also undertook country support roles in disciplines such as CICS, SWIFT and networking.
In fact, a trademark of Mark’s exceptional progress within IBM has been his ability to tackle successfully any task given him. He is intimate with all the major platforms, including CICS, IMS, MVS and networking (WAN and LAN), as well as all IBM products and services, business units and divisions.He has worked in management, consulting, sales and marketing and technical management, achieving PBC 1 ratings in all cases, exceeding commitments

For eight consecutive years (1984 to 1991), IBM SA management recognised his achievements with the IBM SA Professional Excellence award.

Today the scope and scale of work he has undertaken shows itself in the depth of his managerial, marketing and technical insights into all aspects of IBM’s customers’ business.

These insights have an international vigour, with Mark having undertaken support and development projects for IBM in the United States, France and Germany.

While he has developed specialisations in fields such as financial services and banking, telecommunications, process, manufacturing, health, education and energy (electricity and petroleum), he has also acquired a coherent and comprehensive view of the applicability of IBM products and services in the market by heading up IBM SA’s Cross-Industries Business Solutions Unit.

Hands-on or strategically, Mark is a man of action. For example, in 1998 he was given charge of a number of IBM industries which had missed their targets for two consecutive years. He rebuilt the organisation in two months, achieving a four-point overall growth.

As IBM SA director of marketing in 1998, he improved productivity to the point where he could reduce staff by 60% while showing a six-point growth in World-wide Customer Satisfaction.

He was IBM SA’s lead consultant in business process engineering for two years as well as working on strategy and portfolio development in the EMEA Global Industry Solutions office.

Moving from IBM SA director of operations to country general manager in December 2000, Mark’s strengths in business management, strategy development and start-up businesses as well as his exceptional knowledge and appreciation of IT industry issues make him the obvious person to head up an organisation which will make a major contribution to moving South Africa from an emerging economy to pervasive computing and e-business.

He has a special interest in development of the previously disadvantaged, developing and implementing at IBM SA the Andisa programme designed to assist fledgling black IT companies become self-sufficient.

In recognition of his efforts, the South African BMI-TechKnowledge forum nominated him as a black professional making significant contributions to the black IT sector in the country.

Working at a national government level, he was invited on to the South African delegation which discussed with US representatives the privatisation of South African state assets.

At a local level, he has been instrumental in implementing IT centres at the Westbury High School, which serves a previously disadvantaged community.

He is also the President of the American Chamber of Commerce in South Africa, a trustee of the IBM SA pension fund and a formal mentor for aspiring executives in the community. Mark was recently appointed the patron of the Johannesburg Centre of Software Engineering.

A family man with four children, Mark’s commitment to community upliftment also includes sport. He manages a local community soccer team and coaches soccer at La Salle College - having been a league soccer, cricket and squash player himself.

A man aiming for achievement at all times, he plays golf - for his own pleasure - to a seven handicap!