CEO transitions are almost always a case of out with the old, in with the new, including upending the previous regime and its business model. Not the way Ken Njoroge & Akshay Grover did it.
7 keys to forging an effective agile team-leader partnership
Bob Galen Agile Methodologist, Practitioner and Coach, Vaco
People in the agile community often talk about the role leaders must play in creating the necessary ecosystem that will result in a high-performing agile team. But it s just as important for team members to take the right stance with their leadership partners in the business.
As an agile coach, I see too much dysfunctional behavior directed toward the leaders of agile teams. Team members often marginalize leadership, blame them, stereotype them, and vilify them. You may have even heard this sort of lament from someone on an agile team: I m agile, but my manager isn t. Leadership thinks they are, but they re not. That’s what s holding us back. It s their fault.”
Having joined the Telkom IT team fresh out of university and wanting to practice software engineering, I was taken aback when the Head of Cybersecurity said “No, you’re coming to security.” So that’s what happened and I’ve spent my whole career in cybersecurity and I love it,” Varma says.
Varma has worked in government, telecommunications, banking and insurance. In joining Old Mutual five years ago, she headed risk management for the organisation, then went into an executive role and eventually took on the CISO role.
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While serendipity played a big role in Varma’s path to cybersecurity, she is now working to attract women to the field in a more programmatic way.