Ms Mathabo Nakene-Mginqi

Ms Mathabo Nakene-Mginqi  
Vice-Principal ICT / CIO 
University of South Africa 

Ms Mathabo Nakene-Mginqi is the Vice-Principal ICT / CIO driving digitalisation at UNISA through the ICT Digitalisation Strategy to deliver technology lifecycle management that enhances student success rates, high research output and enables the curriculum at UNISA. Mathabo has stabilised UNISA information systems and erased the recurrent system failures culture.

She has successfully and consistently, enabled student registration processes; a calendar period previously fraught with system failures since the UNISA and TSA merger in 2004. She has enabled nine (9) successful online examination sittings and saved UNISA over R26 Million rand by operationalising the UNISA Learning Management System using Moodle optimally and reducing lost productivity hours by over 40%.

She has created a Moodle Infrastructure Capability Development and Management framework to position UNISA as a leader amongst peer institutions. She leads a project portfolio of R 760 million and has successfully delivered over 60% of value into production. Her decisive interventions have reduced contract governance risk, down from 15% in 2022 to 4% currently, quadrupled strategy delivery performance measurement in ICT since joining UNISA, from just over 20% in 2021 to over 80% to date, and, improved expenditure year-on-year from 20% in 2021 to 77% presently.

A digital maven, she has set up an incremental innovation programme using design thinking, product management, lean engineering and agile development, leveraging off subject matter expertise in, and collaborating with, academia. She holds a MSc in Project Management from the University of Pretoria.