Hitachi Vantara, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd., has appointed Alexander Jenewein as General Manager and MD for Sub-Saharan Africa, effective 19 October.

Jenewein is tasked with driving the company's transformation to a customer-centric organisation focused on delivering business outcomes.

The company, which represents the integration of three Hitachi subsidiaries including Pentaho, Hitachi Insight Group and Hitachi Data Systems, will provide customers across Africa with access to IOT solutions that tap into its combined OT and IT expertise.

"What this means for our current and prospective customers in Africa is that they are guaranteed to experience the same best-of-breed technology as their global counterparts. Our current focus in Africa is South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria as a start," said Jenewein.

The strategy is to help customers unlock the value of data to improve profits, gain better customer insight and loyalty, and provide new insights enabling them to develop new revenue streams, Jenewein added.

Hitachi Vantara believes data is key to unlocking the value of IOT.

Jenewein first joined the company in 2015. Since that time he has grown and developed the Solutions and Products Group in the EMEA Emerging region, focusing on demand creation and new business for the organisation's strategic solutions portfolio.

Prior to joining Hitachi, Jenewein headed up the Engineered Systems Sales team for Oracle in East and West Africa. He joined Oracle via the acquisition of Sun Microsystems in 2010, where he had been responsible for various sales and product teams across Eastern and Central Europe, Middle East and Africa.

He holds a Master's degree in IT from the Technical University of Vienna.

"This is an exciting time for Hitachi Vantara. The company has recently relaunched to leverage the Hitachi Group's broad portfolio of innovation, development and experience, and I look forward to helping lead the Sub-Saharan Africa region forward during this new chapter of its development," Jenewein comments.

Tom Pegrume, VP EMEA Emerging Markets at Hitachi Vantara, adds, "We are delighted to announce that Alexander Jenewein will be heading up our operations in Sub-Saharan Africa. Alexander brings a wealth of experience in business growth and development to the new role, and we trust that through his leadership the region will continue to go from strength to strength as the company plays an increasingly important role in assisting clients to navigate the new digital era."