Std Bank's 'dream team'

SUCCESSION: OVER DECADES, GROUP BUILDS UP INDUSTRY-LEADING TALENT

- Moneyweb

By the end of 2027, when Sim Tshabalala steps down as CEO of Standard Bank Group, five of South Africa's six largest banks will have appointed new chief executives.

Mary Vilakazi and Jason Quinn took over as CEOs of FirstRand and Nedbank Group in 2024.

This year, Kenny Fihla and Graham Lee have taken over at Absa Group and Capitec.

This is a remarkable changing of the guard of a sector with a market value of over R1.7 trillion in just 14 months.

Only Fani Titi is the outlier at Investec, although by the time Tshabalala departs, Titi will be 65.

Tshabalala's retirement has been imminent. He is 57 and turns 58 in December.

He has been with the group since 2000, and his rise in the organisation was nothing short of meteoric during his first decade.

Within six years, he was appointed CEO of the Personal and Business Banking (PBB) unit in South Africa.

Just two years after that, he was appointed as CEO of Standard Bank South Africa, its largest business unit.

In 2009, the then CEO of Standard Bank Group, Jacko Maree, appointed three deputy CEOs: Tshabalala, Ben Kruger and Peter Wharton-Hood.

That signal was as clear as any that a formal succession plan had been established. By that point, Maree had been CEO for a decade.

In 2013, Maree retired, and Tshabalala and Kruger were appointed joint group chief executives (GCEO).

A convoluted title, sure, but an arrangement which was probably prudent at the time.