The University of Pretoria’s newly-appointed Chief Operating Officer (COO) Sandile Mthiyane was welcomed to the FABI Monday morning meeting by Director Prof. Bernard Slippers. Appointed in January 2020, he is responsible for facilities management, security services and information technology services at the University of Pretoria.Sandile was invited to meet FABI and, in answering questions from FABIans, outlined his vision to address a number of issues relevant to his portfolio. Amongst the topics he discussed were the challenges of “keeping the lights on” during load shedding as well as providing appropriate IT infrastructure in the age of ‘big data’. Sandile brings a wealth of experience to UP his previous appointments included Head of the Corporate Services Department at the South African Reserve Bank, Executive Head of Engineering: Africa at ABSA/Barclays (Barclays Africa Group) and Executive Head of Engineering and Head of Critical Engineering at ABSA.