Jan Marais

I bring over 23 years of international software development, IT Digital transformation and innovation strategy experience in financial services, insurance and telecommunications with Old Mutual Insure, iWYZE, Koalay.com and Telesure Investment Holdings.

In my current role as the Chief Information Officer for Old Mutual Insure, the second largest short-term insurer in South Africa include the creating and delivering on a full re-platforming, simplifying and digitization strategy for the organization. The journey spans the migration of physical infrastructure to Cloud. Daily operations include the ownership and accountability of a large budget, technical resources and vendors over 6 countries to deliver according to Budget and timelines.

Previously, my position held was Head of Innovation and Efficiencies at Old Mutual iWYZE, I lead strategic IT development projects to introduce cloud-based solutions that replace outdated legacy systems.

While working with Old Mutual iWYZE, I served as Head of IT Operations at Old Mutual Insure, leading the stability, development and implementation of enhanced IT capabilities to align with business growth objectives and reviewing contracts and processes to improve cost efficiencies.

I hold an Internet Programming Specialist Diploma from online technology skills provider Torque IT.

My key areas of expertise include:
IT Strategy & Management | Digital Transformation | Software Development | Cloud Migration | Business Planning & Analysis | Innovation Strategy | Business Intelligence | Solution Architecture | Leadership & Development | Change Management | Process Optimisation | Risk Management

Currently I operate as Chief Information Officer: Retail of Old Mutual Insure, the 2rd largest non-life insurer in South Africa. Where I have been tasked to build a Future State, Cloud-First strategy, and complete the implementation over the next 3 years, while we are supporting the existing “Keeping the Lights On” business functions running in parallel. The team consists of 116 technical staff operating, globally in Poland, Lithuania, Denmark, Belarus, Israel, and South Africa. The success criteria are to be able to run the business on a new Policy administration platform (Sapiens TIA) in AWS and make use of Sales Force for our operational enablement. In parallel also migrate the entire organization over a period of a year to the new environment using an Agile methodology and Dev Ops framework. Thus, replicating what I accomplished in Old Mutual iWYZE into the parent organization using an annual budget of £15 M across both Apex and Opex financial allocation.

In my previous capacity as Head of Innovation and Efficiency at Old Mutual iWYZE, I spearheaded the transformation of the business’ technology infrastructure to enable South Africa’s first short-term insurer to transition to a 100% cloud-based environment, investing more than £21 million over 6 years to implement a strategy to transition legacy applications and systems to AWS cloud while meeting the business demand to grow the business 3-fold during the same time.

As part of my responsibility under Innovation in Old Mutual iWYZE, we explored the Direct Insure market in Nairobi, Kenya in 2016. We partnered with UAP, a local intermediary-based short-term insurer. We developed a full Direct Short term insurance platform that included a contact centre. This technology environment was hosted in South Africa and fully cloud-based. This was done in parallel with my turn turnaround strategy in Old Mutual iWYZE.

In addition, I led the introduction of Connex One at Old Mutual iWYZE, an innovative cloud-based omni-channel software solution that enabled the business to reduce the time required to produce customer quotes by more than 80%. I also identified and introduced new technology to transform business operations at Telesure Investment Holdings, where I implemented a custom-built automated telephony dialer solution for 600 call centre staff and improved their sales effectiveness by 20% whilst reducing idle time by 80%. Most recently, in my new role as Chief Information Officer: Retail in Old Mutual Insure, we have also adopted ConnexOne with a 700-seat call centre, replicating the efficiencies into the larger organization that iWYZE has had over the past two years.

I previously lived and worked in Istanbul, Turkey as an ex-pat for Telesure Investment Holdings. This secondment was for 3 years, and the directive was to set up a Digital Broker with an aggregator on top of the brokerage. We integrated with 4 products and 12 Insurers that included Mapfre, HDI, Anadolu, Groupama, Allianz, AK Sigorta, Zurich Sigorta and Sompo Sigorta. Using both SOAP and Rest API technologies. To assist with the challenges in a country where English was not always available, we were able to take learnings from Telesure Investment Holdings’ sister companies in the UK (Compare the Market), South Africa (Hippo), France (Le Ferrite), and Australia (Budget Insurance). This initiative was financed by BHL (Budget Holdings Limited)  in the UK. My position in Telesure Sigorta (Koalay.com) was IT Manager within a group of 5 ex-pats from South Africa. After 3 years, I had to find my local replacement and return to South Africa.

Part of my Global experience also included living and working in the UK as a Senior Software Developer for a global telecommunications company with offices in London and with an organisational development solutions specialist company called ETS based in Surrey. Based on my experiences during this time and familiarity with the area, my family and I are likely to focus our initial search for employment and property around England, though I remain open to moving elsewhere for the right job opportunity.

My first employment was as a Senior Web Developer with a software consultancy in South Africa, and I have continued working with technology my entire career, accepting increasingly senior roles as my expertise and leadership qualities have advanced. Among the subjects I studied in my final year at high school were Math and Computer Science, as I knew from a young age that I wanted to work with technology and progress my knowledge and expertise in innovative solutions that help businesses and people work smarter.

IPSD - Internet Programming Specialist Diploma