Committed to service excellence

Mariselle Stofberg



Ella Hansen is a senior applications administrator in the Information Systems Applications (ISA) unit at the Government Institutions Pension Fund (GIPF). She values the role she plays in ensuring that internal and external users receive the best ICT services.

“The main purpose of this unit is to ensure that GIPF's business systems are kept running and remain available to our business users. We do this by training, testing, project managing, liaising and collaborating with both internal and external stakeholders to ensure that stakeholder satisfaction and expectations with respect to information systems are met,” says Hansen.

Hansen works with business users, internal departments and vendors to identify, improve, redesign, analyse and resolve business system performance, usage and availability. She believes the essence of her position is to ensure that business systems keep running and are up to date so that users internally and externally can perform their daily functions efficiently. Her role also presents opportunities to learn new technologies, which keeps her technical skills polished.

“The IS service philosophy that speaks to the overall strategy of the Fund is to deliver secure information systems services and solutions 'as a service', underpinned by an efficient, creative and innovative professional service culture, to meet the objectives of the fund,” Hansen says.

Behind every successful and ambitious woman is an extremely supportive family. Hansen is married and describes her spouse as a very supportive husband. She attests that he greatly assists her to strike a perfect balance between work and family commitments. She has two young boys and instils a culture of sitting around the table over dinner as they catch up on the happenings of the day. In her spare time, she enjoys reading.

“I find that as I get older, I need the mental escapism to distract me from the everyday routine and obligations. I find this helps me to reboot, alleviate stress and recharge. Home is certainly where my heart is and pottering around the house and doing odd jobs in and around the garden and kitchen gives me pleasure and a sense of fulfilment.”