In today’s Confare blog entry we take a closer look at Ubuntu – an African philosophy built around a „one through many“ approach. The perfect guest to guide the CIO-community through this topic: Alec Joannou, ABB global CIO and Confare Swiss CIOAWARD winner. Let us take a closer look at his findings together and how your leadership quality can profit from Ubuntu.
What led you to engage deeply with the concept of Ubuntu in a leadership context?
Honestly, Michael — for most of my career, I didn’t even know the word Ubuntu.
But everything I did was centred around people. My Enneagram profile came back as a 9 — the peacemaker. Insights Discovery put me firmly in green. My “native genius” turned out to be relationships. And growing up in my family’s business in South Africa, the way I worked with staff and customers reinforced the same thing — I was always at my best when I was working with people, not around them.
Then one day I came across Ubuntu — “I am because we are.”
And it hit me like a ton of bricks 😊 It fitted me like a glove.
It felt like someone had finally given a name to something I had been living instinctively my entire life. From that moment on, I started to claim it consciously — in how I lead, how I think, and how I make decisions.
Ubuntu is not something I adopted.
It is something that helped me understand who I already was.
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What does Ubuntu mean to you in modern business leadership, and specifically in the CIO role?
For me, it’s everything.
Every aspect of technology, at its core, is about people.
You cannot be an effective CIO if you only think in terms of systems and platforms. I often go back to something I said 26 years ago at PwC, during a Unilever transformation:
Systems make it possible. People make it happen.
That is Ubuntu in the CIO seat.
And I would go further. In today’s world, with AI, data, cloud, and cybersecurity evolving at exponential speed, a CIO who does not operate through Ubuntu will struggle to succeed.
No individual can keep up with that pace alone.
You succeed through your teams, your partners, your ecosystem.
“I am because we are” is not a slogan — it is the only scalable operating model we have.
And perhaps it should make us rethink how we recognise success — from CIO of the year to the best IT team.
You describe the future as something we borrow from future generations — how does that perspective influence your decisions?
It influences them deeply.
I grew up in a South Africa that made many very poor decisions in the past, and we are still living with the consequences today. That leaves a mark on you.
As a CIO, one of your core responsibilities is to think forward. There’s a saying I’ve carried with me for years:
“The reason I enjoy the shade today is because someone planted a tree long ago.”
That is Ubuntu in action — and it is why disciplines like Enterprise Architecture matter so much.
So I try to plant trees — in architecture, in data foundations, in talent, and in partnerships — knowing that I may never personally benefit from them.
And on a personal level, I have four sons. It would be a failure of leadership to leave them a world worse than the one I inherited.
We’ve come so far as a society. Our responsibility is to build on that, not erode it.
That thinking sits behind almost every decision I take.
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Sustainability often loses priority under pressure — how do you deal with that?
Change management is always the first thing organisations try to cut when pressure builds in large programmes. Sustainability follows the same pattern in business as usual — for the same reason: the impact is not immediately visible.
But that’s exactly why it matters.
We either pay forward, or we pay much more later.
Ubuntu forces you to think beyond the quarter. It forces you to think about collective impact, not just immediate outcomes.
And the reality is this — if a CIO does not hold that line under pressure, it disappears from the organisation.
Leadership is not tested when things are easy.
It is tested when trade-offs become uncomfortable.
Where do you currently see blind spots in technology decision-making?
We are still too linear in how we think.
In our operating models, in our decision-making, even in the way we structure debates. Take waterfall and agile — both have value, but we often treat them as belief systems instead of tools.
No single operating model will get us through the next generation of IT. It will require a combination, applied deliberately.
Most operating models in large IT organisations were designed for a different era — one where change was slower and more predictable.
The bigger issue is this:
Have we genuinely evolved how we govern and decide at the pace technology is evolving?
In an AI-driven world, where data is central, I don’t think we have. Too often, we are still trying to layer AI onto existing processes instead of rethinking those processes from first principles.
That gap is one of our biggest blind spots.
Until we redesign how we decide, the pace of technology will keep outrunning the wisdom of our decisions.
What gets lost when cloud, AI, or infrastructure are evaluated purely technically or commercially?
Almost everything that actually matters.
You lose the human dimension — how people will adopt, trust, and use the technology.
You lose the sustainability dimension — the long-term impact of your choices.
You lose flexibility — whether you are enabling optionality or creating lock-in.
And often, you lose sight of real business value.
A purely technical or commercial lens gives you a local optimum.
But it can create a global loss.
Ubuntu thinking forces you to zoom out — who is affected, who benefits, and what are we building together?
How do you anchor responsibility so it holds up in day-to-day operations?
Two words: empower and trust.
I make it very clear to my leaders that I trust them. And I make it equally clear that if something goes wrong, we will learn together.
Fear makes people cautious.
Trust makes people courageous.
And when things go well, I am very deliberate about where the credit goes — to the teams, not to me.
Responsibility does not hold through process alone.
It holds when people believe their leader has their back.
That is Ubuntu in practice.
What tensions currently define your work as a CIO?
The biggest one is democratisation versus control.
Everyone wants access to AI, data, and tools — and rightly so. That is where value is created.
But every step towards democratisation increases risk exposure and cost.
The role of the CIO today is not to eliminate that tension.
It is to hold it intelligently.
To enable access while maintaining trust, security, and sustainability.
That balance is the daily work.
Where can the CIO community make a concrete impact today on sustainable technology?
In small, consistent decisions.
Question every device refresh cycle. Extend it where you can.
Ask vendors for real sustainability data, not marketing claims.
Challenge cloud providers on their environmental footprint.
Individually, these seem small.
Collectively, they are powerful.
No single CIO will solve sustainability. But if the global CIO community consistently asks these questions, markets will shift.
That is Ubuntu at scale.
How much societal responsibility does a CIO carry today?
More than we acknowledge. Honestly, much more.
The decisions we make shape how people work, how they are monitored, how information flows, and how inclusive or exclusive systems become.
These are not just technical decisions. They are societal ones.
The CIO is one of the few roles with the vantage point, the resources, and the influence to shape that.
We should approach that responsibility with humility, but also with courage.
Because the legacy we leave will not be measured only in systems or platforms, but in the impact those systems have on people.
And that, ultimately, is what leadership is about.
There are still more opportunities to contribute meaningfully on the societal dimension — regardless of geography. The responsibility does not diminish. If anything, it becomes more deliberate.