During the past 20 years, business and IT have inexorably converged. In response, IT managers have morphed into CIOs, as much concerned with the business as they are with technology. Yusuf Aboobaker’s career path has reflected this evolution – as has the changed focus of the company he has worked at over the past 15 years, Spartan.

Aboobaker grew up in Mafikeng where his family operated shops. The gift of a Sinclair ZX Spectrum personal computer was the spark that ignited his interest in IT. Fortuitously, he had a good friend who was equally interested in IT, and the two spurred each other on in pursuit of their shared interest. Aboobaker had assumed he would ultimately go into the family business, but by the time he graduated from the University of Durban-Westville (now the Westville campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal) with a B.Com in economics and information systems, family circumstances had changed and he had to enter the job market. Work as a programmer for a financial software company led rapidly to an offer to join his then manager in setting up their own company, Xiriuz Systems. Despite the success of the venture, by 2007, Aboobaker began to feel he needed a reset and a different focus.