Former Reserve Bank of South Africa (SARB) deputy governor Daniel Mminele has been appointed as the new group chief executive officer of the Absa Group with effect from 15 January 2020, the financial services group’s board chairperson Wendy Lucas-Bull announced on Tuesday.
The appointee takes over from Maria Ramos who retired at the end of February 2019. Rene van Wyk served as interim chief executive since March 2019.
Mminele worked in the apex bank’s financial markets and international banking departments before being appointed deputy governor responsible for financial markets and international economic relations.
He served at the SARB for over 20 years and was deputy governor for two terms, Lucas-Bull said, adding that one of Mminele’s first responsibilities in his new role would be to oversee the implementation of Absa’s new strategy.
“Being a South African and being seeped in the history of understanding what the challenges are in South Africa at the moment, he will be the right kind of leadership prospective in terms of navigating the stakeholder environment which the bank faces, not only in South Africa, but across the continent,” Lucas-Bull said.
She added: “And with South Africa being our major market, and being a significant portion of our bottom line, it is absolutely imperative that we have a South African lead the organisation at this point in time”.
Absa Group Limited, formerly known as Barclays Africa Group Limited and originally called the Amalgamated Banks of South Africa, is an African based financial services group offering personal and business banking credit cards, corporate and investment banking, wealth and investment management.
Absa has 40,000 employees, was founded in 1991, and is based in Johannesburg, the country’s financial hub.
NM/jn/APA