Dineo Molefe, Managing Director of T-Systems South Africa (TSSA), will not be drawn in to a discussion on any of the challenges faced by the company's leadership – including the looming litigation with Transnet over a R1.5 billion contract, or questions raised in the 2016 amaBhungane Report regarding alleged links to the #GuptaEmailLeaks scandal.

While attending the screening of a documentary focused on TSSA brand ambassador Wayde van Niekerk in Johannesburg this week, Molefe told ITWeb Africa that her predecessor Gert Schoonbee had become a personal friend and she wants to focus on 'building the company'.

"Life has moments where you are up and those where you are down, as well as those where you don't know what is going on. As a company we are on our way up. We face a lot of challenges but we are on our way up. We are a South African company owned by Germans, but we remain truly South African. I believe in this country going forward and we are going nowhere but forward. I am not holding on to what has happened. I am focused on building," she said.

Molefe, who served as Chief Financial Officer of TSSA for two years, said the immediate goal is to reinvent the business.

"I think the IT market is at a tough place. I think the industry is changing and everyone is relooking and rethinking about where money is going to come from. There was a point in IT when managed services and networks were the foundation of what we do, before that it was mainframe et cetera, and now it is all about cloud. None of us are at a point where we can say that all of our customers are on the cloud - so we ask ourselves whether we have money or not. I think the IT industry is at a point where we are all trying to figure out this new world and reconfigure ourselves. A lot of our competitors are trying to do the same. It is an interesting time in the industry with many opportunities to collaborate."

Mpumi Nhlapo, Sales & Service Management Head for Demand Management at TSSA and an executive producer of the Van Niekerk film, added, "This is a turning point. If you talk about digital transformation, ICT companies are affected by it as well. We are not immune to this phenomenon because we are technologists. We are also corporates with large legacy infrastructure that we need to transform, as well as workforces that we need to transform and move into the new world.

Molefe also emphasised the importance of the Africa market for the company but offered little in the way of detail or strategy saying only the company has customers who are rolling out into the rest of Africa and TSSA is helping them to do that.