When you speak to Mardia van der Walt-Korsten about the success she's had with T-Systems, you can literally hear her discomfort. The CEO of T-Systems South Africa clearly isn't happy with being singled out as the success factor for turning the local arm of Deutsche Telekom's business segment operation around. Her language and phrasing continually loops back to the words 'team', 'us' and 'we'. If anything, this speaks to the success of cohesiveness, and what happens when you get a leader who is able to focus a huge business on single-mindedly changing for the better.

 With Van der Walt-Korsten in the hot seat at T-Systems, the company went from being a second tier service provider (serving other IT heavyweights instead of having a direct relationship with clients) to being a formidable presence in the market.