ISACA Chapter Excellence hosts inaugural awards

The Annual ISACA UAE Chapter Excellence Awards had its inaugural ceremony on 15^th March.

Tariq Al Ghaith, Financial Audit Department, Dubai was the Keynote speaker for the day and he congratulated the ISACA UAE Chapter and Gurpreet Kochar for instituting the awards.

The first edition of the awards saw a tremendous number of nominations in all categories (IT Management, IT Security, IT Audit, IT Continuity and IT Governance) from UAE and GCC.

Gurpreet Kochar, President, ISACA UAE CHAPTER, said “Turning an idea into an initiative and  into reality  which adds value to the organisation  needs a lot of creativity, determination, encouragement and support from all quarters to overcome the countless hurdles that lie on the journey. Our special thanks go to the JURY – Rob Kella, Padmanabha Acharya & Mr. Ali Abdul Aziz Al-Ali – for the great efforts they made. They applied their extensive experience and expertise in a fair and independent process and selected the winners for each category of awards in an impartial and rigorous manner.”

The top honours for the year went to Issam Zaghloul – Head IT Audit, Anwar Abdulla Almulla of Abu Dhabi Police GHQ, who won the Head IT Continuity award, Kavinda Walatara who won Head of IT Governance, and  Illyas Kooliyankal, who won Head of Information Security. There was a tie for the Head IT management of the year 2014, the award being shared by Ahmad M Almulla from Dubal & Eng. and Mohammed Saeed Al Shehhi from General Civil Aviation Authority.