Technology Management Alumna Unathi Mtya: SPS Program Prepares Students “for Any Role in Technology and Business Leadership”

When Unathi Mtya started out the Columbia SPS Government Master of Science in Technologies Administration application, she was presently a effective executive. But right after acquiring her degree in 2018, her vocation skyrocketed into the C-suite. Now CIO at African Lender, she was recently named a Most Influential African Ladies Banker in 2022.

What led you to go after the Technological innovation Management degree? Why from Columbia, specially?

It experienced generally been a dream of mine to review at just one of the Ivy League schools and Columbia College was in my major a few. I was approaching forty and experienced been in the tech sector for over eighteen years. I wanted to enrich my govt stage experience in business leadership, as very well as in technological know-how. I also wished to get intercontinental encounter, as properly as to understand from colleagues about the world. That is accurately what the Government Learn of Science in Technologies Administration plan at Columbia afforded me and so much more. This continues to be 1 of the very best conclusions I have ever manufactured. 

Inform us about your career journey and your part as CIO at African Financial institution. How did you advance to the C-Suite? 

My occupation journey spans above a period of twenty-four decades when 1st National Financial institution recruited me from college at the age of twenty-1. My vocation was speedy-tracked by landing pretty crucial positions alongside the way, which led to overseeing many portfolios throughout a extensive spectrum of IT disciplines, leading multidisciplinary teams throughout the IT spectrum at senior management, typical administration, and C-suite amounts, both of those in the public and the personal sector.

My purpose at African Financial institution follows a two-year stint at Grindrod Bank as Main Technological innovation Officer. African Financial institution is on an audacious progress route, supported by an remarkable method which offers course to the new IT technique as we cement “strengthening the main,” as effectively as “expanding the core” of the financial institution. At African Bank, we are constructing a scalable, sustainable, and diversified business, and at the coronary heart of all this is tech enablement and electronic transformation. I’m honored to direct the workforce, and have a obligation to make this feasible each day, and [ensure that] we are on the correct monitor. 

Has the system served you to determine your vocation journey? Have your aspirations or experienced goals altered in any way owing to the application?

I think the program has actually provided me a competitive benefit by increasing my watch of the globe, the tech, and the business management landscape regionally and globally. After finishing the program, I re-entered the banking sector, this time at the C-suite level right after spending time in other sectors. This yr, I was regarded as one of the main CIOs less than World-wide CIO 100 for 2022. I was also a short while ago awarded as a Most Influential African Girls Banker of the Year (Electronic Transformation) less than the category of Banking and Leadership Awards, which took spot in Nairobi, Kenya on May perhaps 26, 2022.

Have any courses or school customers helped you to hone essential skills?  

I was blown away and very impressed. All the faculty associates were being quite very good. They built the complete expertise worth the time and effort. To day, I even now refer to some of the method content material and material. The further blessing for me was the interactions and friendships I cast, which have proved to profit me much outside of the time I invested at Columbia.

What assistance do you have for upcoming students who want to be successful in management roles in finance or tech? 

My information would be not to postpone getting cost of your career journey. Commence making your possess story and narrative. Columbia University and this application in specific are a single for the guides. At the finish of this method, you will realize you have developed in leaps and bounds and are prepared for any function in technological innovation and business management.

Understand far more about the Government M.S. in Technologies Administration.