In a changing technology landscape, where strategic resilience and calibration remains key, iOCO is profitable, generating strong cash, growing organically and back on the front foot.
Ask Ashona Kooblall what she is proudest of since taking the group CFO seat at iOCO, and she does not reach for a number. She reaches for the people.
“The easiest thing to point to is the results,” she says. “But the results are an outcome. What I’m actually proud of is that thousands of people across this business chose to back a hard strategy and then did the hard work that came with it.”
It is a characteristic answer from a leader who is, by any measure, deeply numbers literate – and noticeably warm about the human side of the work. Both instincts have been useful, because the company she helps steer has been through one of the more demanding transformations in South African technology.
iOCO, which traded as EOH until December 2024, spent recent years rebuilding. The strategy was unglamorous and deliberate – a three-step plan to reset the business for the long term. Cost rationalisation came first. Then decentralisation, handing business units the autonomy to run and grow their own markets and driving a deep sense of accountability. Both are now substantially complete, and both have changed the way the company works.
The proof arrived in the numbers for the six months to 31 January 2026. Group revenue rose 3.5 percent to R2.83 billion – the first period of organic growth in several years. Net profit climbed 46 percent to R180 million, Ebitda grew 21 percent to R305 million and net interest-bearing bank debt fell to R512 million. The company lifted its full-year guidance, repurchased shares, and reported a return on equity of 40 percent with positive free cash flow. On results day, the share price rose while the broader market fell.
For Ashona, those figures are less a victory lap than a licence. “A strong balance sheet is not the goal,” she says. “It’s permission. Once the foundations are genuinely in place – cost discipline embedded, cash generating, debt under control – you earn the right to stop defending and start investing. That is the moment we’ve reached.”
Why people and why now
Ashona’s leadership philosophy was shaped well before iOCO. A formative chapter came at Nike, where the brief was to create value simultaneously for athletes and for shareholders – a useful early lesson that performance and purpose are not opposing forces. “You learn quickly that the performance is a reflection of the quality of decisions made everywhere else in the business,” she says. “Get the people and the priorities right, and the numbers tend to follow.”
That conviction has translated into one of her quieter but most consequential priorities: getting the right people into the right roles. Much of the work of the past 18 months has gone into strengthening the leadership bench – promoting talent that had been under-used and bringing in senior people who chose iOCO precisely because they believed in what it was becoming.
“This is a moment a lot of strong operators want to be part of,” she says. “When you’re rebuilding something with a clear purpose, you attract people who want to build too. That’s been one of the most energising parts of the job.”
She talks about her teams in the language of trust rather than hierarchy. People who have worked with her describe an excellent leader. Her smart, open and decisive nature – a CFO who would rather have the difficult conversation early and directly than let an issue fester and who is generous with credit. “Leadership is not about authority,” she says. “The strongest leaders earn trust through being consistent and being the same person on a good day as on a bad one. I want people to feel both stretched and supported. You cannot have one without the other for very long.”
Discipline that creates, rather than cuts
If there is a financial idea she returns to most, it is that cost discipline should never be confused with cost-cutting. “Reduction for its own sake is a blunt instrument,” she says. “The real discipline is making sure every rand is deployed intentionally, that capital flows to where it can create the most value. Done well, cost optimisation does not shrink a business. It sharpens it.”
That mindset matters now more than ever, because the market iOCO serves is moving fast. Clients are no longer buying generalist technology services; they want genuine specialists – in cloud, in artificial intelligence, in automation, in cybersecurity – paired with the scale and governance to deliver at enterprise level. iOCO’s recent acquisition activity, its first in eight years, signalled a company once again willing to move with conviction rather than caution. iOCO has also shared their disciplined serial acquirer strategy with the market, an exciting new chapter for the company, and for shareholder value creation, more importantly for the people at iOCO, what an exciting time.
The next chapter
It is the future, though, that Ashona is most animated about – even if she is careful, for now, about the details. With the first two phases of the strategy complete, the company is moving into its third: capital and resource allocation, and a structural step designed to match deep specialist focus with clear accountability and a single platform built for growth. She believes one of the greatest strengths behind iOCO’s success has been the quality of her relationship with CEO and major shareholder Rhys Summerton, whose strategic vision and leadership have been instrumental in driving value creation. In her view, an exceptional CEO-CFO partnership is fundamental to building long-term value and she has found that relationship both rewarding and energising.
The same philosophy shapes her relationships with the company’s business heads. Her guiding principle is simple: she wants them to succeed every day. By supporting, challenging and enabling her colleagues, she believes strong relationships are a powerful driver of both individual and organisational success.
“Everything we’ve done for 24 months was building towards the next wave,” she says. “Autonomy and accountability are two sides of the same coin. Give specialist teams the freedom to own their businesses, hold them genuinely accountable for outcomes and you get faster decisions, sharper customer focus and a real appetite to win. That’s the culture we’re carrying forward.”
She is candid that not every decision in a transformation is comfortable, but insists discomfort is rarely the problem. “Delayed decisions usually carry more risk than imperfect ones. What matters is that people understand the why and that they are given a real chance to shape the journey rather than just absorb it.”
Pressed on what gives her confidence in what comes next, she returns, again, to people.
“A structure on a slide is the easy part,” she says. “I believe our next chapter is bright because of the people who will bring it to life and we have spent a long time making sure they are the right ones. The turnaround was theirs. The growth story will be too.”
