Management of ASBIS Africa

The board is made up of the following directors:

Wade Calenborne
Chief Executive Officer, ASBIS Africa 

Wade has a long and successful career in the South African IT channel beginning in 1996 when he joined Seagate Africa, a joint venture between local shareholders and Seagate Technology Inc.  He was appointed as Managing Director of Storgate Africa in 2001, where he played a major part in helping to establish the company as one of the largest and most successful distribution companies of its type in the country.

In 2004, Wade joined ASBIS Africa as CEO. He brings to the position extensive experience within the IT distribution industry as well as specialist knowledge of the IT peripherals and components market. Based on over a decade of executive experience in the IT distribution industry, he is highly respected throughout the distribution channel and among major international vendors.

Peter Blaauw
Country Director, ASBIS Africa

After completing his B. Com (Honours) degree at the University of Pretoria in 1989, he was appointed as chief operations officer and deputy managing director of a software distribution subsidiary in a large information technology group listed on the JSE.

During 1994 he was appointed managing director of the software company and executive director of the IT supply chain organisation in the IT group. In 1995 he was recruited by MB Technologies to establish Seagate Africa - a joint venture between MBT and Seagate Technology (Europe) to represent the business interests of Seagate Inc in sub-Sahara Africa.

During 1996, after Seagate Africa had successfully achieved its business objectives as a joint venture, MBT acquired Seagate’s shares and the company was re-positioned as Storgate Africa - a focussed distributor of a complete range of data storage products and components.

At the beginning of 2001, he was appointed chief executive officer of the MBT storage solutions and services division. This appointment led to the successful establishment of Storage Technology Services, one of South Africa’s largest, focused suppliers of data storage technology and services to the corporate market.

In August 2003 he left the MBT group to pursue personal business interests focused on the acceleration of black economic empowerment and transformation in the information technology industry.

Ryan Johnson
Executive Director, ASBIS Africa 

40-year-old Ryan Johnson, who has worked his way up through the ranks of the IT industry over the past 17 years, joined Sithabile in May, 2008, tasked with growing the company’s market share. The position has given him extensive scope, due to the enormous demands currently placed on the backup market, to craft unique deals and create solutions at a time when IT spend has been slowing for some time.

Ryan joined Quantum Africa from Accenture SA where he was headhunted by the group’s UK operation to represent South Africa as a core member of its Deal Makers group, tasked with increasing the consulting company’s exposure, through associate partners, to key people in the outsourcing market. Ryan has also held a position at Sun Microsystems in Africa where he was government executive and open source spokesperson for the organisation. It was through exposure on his seat on the Presidential IT Advisory Panel while at Sun Microsystems that Accenture UK was introduced to Johnson and where he developed key relationships with many business leaders that he taps to this day for strategic opportunities.  Ryan went to Sun Microsystems from EDS Africa where he headed up government sales. Prior to EDS Africa, Ryan was a member of Unisys Africa’s government business development team where he was first exposed to complex public sector partnerships.

His extensive involvement in the Eldorado Park community as a teenager through several youth development programmes and as a member of the student representative council helped prepare his skills early on for his later leadership roles. Today Ryan enjoys reading biographies and motivational texts, spends his time away from the office with family and friends and continues his community involvement through close work with his favourite charity in South Africa and Africa.