I`m referring to Judge Merwyn King, chairman of the King Committee on Corporate Governance, and the 70-year-old hyperactive reluctant Messiah of compliance legislation. In an inspiring week at the ITWeb IT Governance 2005 Conference, King was said by one organiser to possess enormous charm and one-on-one focus, and for all his achievements, was quite prepared to be impressed.
Judge King`s CV reads like that of a company director at the top of his game. We couldn`t do justice to the seven pages of bullet points making up his CV in our Newsmaker article on page 19, but it gives one some idea of what we have in this person whose work inspired some high-profile governance legislation.
King points out that you cannot legislate against dishonesty, but that`s just the sort of startling viewpoint one expects from somebody so accomplished.
Another story that touches on the theme of local excellence is the one on page 6, about IBM`s South African services arm securing high-end mainframe support contracts for European and UK customers. It is not our intention to gloat at the expense of other geographies, and this is a sensitive issue, but the lesson we can take away from all this is that the opportunities for South Africa have only just begun to show themselves.
Why not originate overseas contracts from South Africa? Why rest on the uncomfortable shoulders of multinational parents, benefiting from hand-me-down, globally-originated contracts?
AT Kearney, the management consulting arm of EDS (well, not for much longer), is asking the very same question. A local spokesman identifies Dubai as the source of much of its revenue. And why not?
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