Unathi Mtya is a member of the Forbes Technology Council, a renowned keynote speaker and was recently a Chief Technology Officer at Grindrod Bank. Unathi has cultivated a massively successful career that is 22 years strong and still growing. Starting her career at First National Bank (FNB), she has also held key positions at several major companies and institutions, including Business Connexion (BCX), State Information Technology Agency (SITA) and SA Parliament. Unathi has led a number of portfolios across a wide spectrum of ICT technical disciplines and has led multi-disciplinary technical teams across the ICT spectrum at Senior Management, General Management and Chief Information/ Technology levels.

In her current role, Unathi’s time is also spent understanding and accommodating what she sees as the biggest technology trends in the banking industry namely: Acceleration of new technologies; Collaboration of Banks & Fintechs and the growing importance of customer experience.

A tech enthusiast and an advocate for ‘value’, one of her key strengths lies in her ability to translate strategy into operational delivery, to meet the needs of the business and to ensure creation of value-add.

Unathi earned qualifications from the University of Fort Hare (BSc: Computer Science & Geographic Information System as majors), University of Witwatersrand (Professional Certificate in CIO Pratice) and Columbia University in New York City (Master of Science in Technology Management).

An avid runner of international marathons, a hobby she has enjoyed for several years. During this period, she completed New York X2, Paris X2, London, Prague, Barcelona, Great wall China, Athens and Berlin Marathons.