Innovation

Sarah Blignaut, SARS’ deputy CTO

Imagine a child in 1980s’ KwaZulu- Natal, her small hands gripping a joystick in the arcade, eyes fixed on a pixelated spaceship zigzagging across the screen. She’s playing Space Invaders, and 20c buys her a few more minutes. The child is Sarah Blignaut, who would one day become deputy chief technology officer at the South African Revenue Service (SARS).

Her world then was modest, but full of love. Born in Kenya, her family moved to South Africa when she was three. She was raised in Pinetown, and Blignaut remembers growing up in a home defined by kindness and conviction. “From an early age, I was taught to value hard work, integrity and compassion,” she says. Those principles, set firmly by her parents and older sister, remain the architecture of her leadership style. Blignaut didn’t set out to be a technologist.