Marval Africa appoints Richard Peasey as Managing Executive

Johannesburg-based IT services and management consultancy Marval Africa has appointed a new Managing Executive in the form of Richard Peasey – a former senior executive at Absa – who will lead the firm’s reorientation efforts towards a greater focus on sales and customer management. 

Richard Peasey has over three decades of experience in the world of financial IT, and has had a career characterised by stability, given the fact that 30 years of this experience was accumulated at a single firm – Absa. He joined Absa’s IT department in 1977, four years after he graduated from Damelin College in South Africa.

During his time at Absa, Peasey worked his way up the ranks to General Manager of IT services and ended his tenure at the firm as the General Manager for Project Delivery. Since leaving Absa over a decade ago, he has held the role of CEO at Beehive Consulting, as well as that of PMO at Standard Bank – which, like Absa, recently dropped McKinsey & Company from its roster of partners.

Peasey will now move to Marval Africa to work as Managing Executive at the firm. Marval hopes that the appointment will drive its shift in focus, both in terms of geography to further integrate into the African market, as well as in terms of operations to lay more emphasis on customer-centricity.

Marval Africa is a subsidiary of UK-based Marval Group, and functions as an IT governance and service management consulting firm, designing and implementing solutions for its clients across the world – including the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. In addition to offering software solutions, the firm also delves into the education and coaching domains.

Peasey himself sees the need for a third dimension in the firm’s reorientation strategy, one that effectively balances IT services with the innovative integration of digital capabilities. “One of my objectives is to structure Marval Africa into a stronger solutions-based organisation that combines people, processes, and technology rather than having a purely technical and software-oriented approach,” he explains.

He added, “Today, many organisations do not effectively drive a holistic strategy to position their products and services. IT plays a strategic role in digital transformation as it is the core of the business. As such, IT should be seen as an equal partner; however, it is often seen solely as a supplier of service, creating challenges when implementing a digital strategy.”

Commenting on the appointment, Executive Director of Marval Africa Edward Carbutt said, “We have an established presence in SA and have built solutions for many large brands in the market; however, we aim to be the name synonymous with service management solutions in SA and throughout the rest of Africa.”