Courses and Disciplines taught at WBS:
Digital Transformation and Maturity; Business Strategy for a Digital World.
Research Interests:
Technological disruption and transformation; business strategy; the digital divide; technological diffusion and adoption; business models.
Industry and Professional Experience:
Brian Armstrong is one of the foremost ICT industry leaders in South Africa, with over 30 years of top level management experience in Telecommunications, IT, technology R&D and systems engineering, both in South Africa and abroad. He is widely regarded as a thought leader in digitalisation, convergence and business strategy. He consults widely to industry and government on technological disruption and digital business and is an acclaimed public speaker on digital transformation and its socio-economic impacts. He is a non-executive director of Old Mutual Limited, the Huge Group Ltd, Bankserve Africa, and the Tshimologong Innovation Precinct.
Previously Brian spent seven years in the Telkom Group, as Group Chief Operating Officer and Group Chief Commercial Officer. In his time with Telkom he revived the ailing Telkom Business unit, and conceived and led the acquisition of BCX and its integration into the group. He was also responsible for the group’s retail unit, as well as leading group strategy and transformation activities.
Before joining Telkom in 2010 Brian was BT’s Vice President for Middle East and Africa with overall responsibility to oversee and grow BT’s activities across the region. Before that his work experience includes South Africa’s CSIR, ultimately as the Director of the Division for Information and Communications Technology; and South African listed ICT services group AST (now Gijima), as Managing Director of AST Networks
Recent Publications and Scholarly Contributions:
Armstrong, B. C., & Lee, G. J. (2021). Digital Business. Silk Route Press.
Other Scholarly Contributions:
Brian has served as a panellist, facilitator and keynote speaker at numerous events including CSIR conferences, the DST Workshop of the 4th Industrial Revolution, the CIO Alliances Forum Southern Africa, 4IRSA workshops, the Standard Bank Quantum Shift Leadership Programme, the Business Day 4.0 Summit, the Sustainable Infrastructure Development Symposium South Africa (Ministerial Roundtable), and the RIB-CCS CxO Conference. Topics included digitalisation in South Africa - opportunities & challenges; digital transformation; the 4IRSA framework and process; digital disruption, digitalisation and simplification; the ‘dark side’ of digital – critical issues that business leaders should be thinking about; and digital transformation in the construction industry, among others.
Community Engagement:
2020: Facilitation of the Universities in Dialogue webinars hosted by the Motsepe Foundation.
2020: Participation in Presidential Covid Stimulus Task team on Broadband Infrastructure.
2019/20: Contribution to the SADA (South Africa in the Digital Age) initiative Strategy Primer for South Africa’s Digital Economy.
2019: Secretary General of the 4IRSA partnership.
2019: Appointed to the Ministerial Task Team on Higher Education in the 4th Industrial Revolution; provided input.
2018: Participation in the Thabo Mbeki Foundation task-team on Education in the 21st Century. (http://www.mbeki.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/FULL-REPORT-TMF-Education-in-the-Age-of-the-21st-Century.pdf)
2017: Support to Tshimologong, in the capacity of non-executive director of the Tshimologong Innovation Precinct.
International Experience:
Brian was BT’s Vice President for Middle East and Africa (MEA) from 2003 to 2010, with overall responsibility to oversee and grow BT’s activities across the region. During this time he established or grew operation in ~36 territories, from Turkey in the north, Pakistan in the east, and all of the Persian gulf and Africa. Under his leadership the MEA region’s revenue grew from less than €10m per year to ~€400m per year.
Recent Media:
During the past several years Brian has featured on many radio talk shows such as Classic Business, the Vuka Mzansi Breakfast show, a Radio 702 4th Industrial Revolution Masterclass, and in a Business Day TV webcast.