Philip Stander on the South African tech powering MTN and AI

South African software company Globetom quietly powers millions of MTN customer interactions while building technology for the emerging AI economy.

Philip Stander, Group CEO at Globetom, explains how the company grew from a telecoms-focused systems integrator into a technology business serving customers across telecommunications, aviation, data analytics, and artificial intelligence.

Stander reveals how Globetom processes roughly 125–150 million customer interactions and more than a billion systems integration events on MTN’s network each day. He also explains the company’s integration-platform-as-a-service technology and why standardised APIs are becoming increasingly important as enterprises move away from monolithic software systems.

The conversation explores Globetom’s expansion into global aviation through cloud-based analytics and AI, as well as its strategy to become an AI-centric organisation. Rather than competing directly with major AI hyperscalers, Globetom is focusing on integrating models, enterprise data, and applications to create usable intelligence for customers.

0:00 Intro

0:40 The story behind Globetom

2:54 Powering MTN behind the scenes

5:03 Globetom’s telecoms advantage

7:17 Expanding into global aviation

9:25 Where consumers encounter its technology

12:44 Globetom’s AI strategy

17:57 Building South African engineering talent