End of an era for Capitec

South Africa’s biggest bank by customers, Capitec, has announced that its chief executive and co-founder, Gerrie Fourie, will retire in July 2025 and be succeeded by retail bank group executive Graham Lee.

The bank said that Fourie would retire at the group’s Annual General Meeting on 18 July 2025, with Lee taking over on 19 July.

Fourie has been part of Capitec’s executive management for the past 25 years and has overseen the bank’s massive growth. He has been CEO since 2014.

During his tenure, the bank grew from 5 million largely low-income customers to a retail behemoth of 24 million customers.

The banks has also grown from a predominantly offering micro-lending and basic retail banking services to a fully diversified digital bank and financial service provider—with room for even more growth.

Fourie’s retirement marks a significant end of an era for the bank, as the CEO is last of the bank’s founders to exit management.

The bank was launched in 2001 and was founded by a group of executives, including Fourie, Michiel le Roux, Jannie Mouton, and Riaan Stassen.

Le Roux served as the bank’s first CEO until 2004 before switching to board chairman from 2007 to 2016. Stassen took over as CEO from 2004 to 2013, followed by Fourie, who will serve until July 2025.

Capitec’s board credited Fourie for fostering this culture of innovation and growth at the group.

“Fourie has built a strong and diverse leadership team poised to carry the Bank into the future,” the bank said.

“To this end, the executive structure was expanded to establish divisional executive teams responsible for the retail bank, business bank, insurance company and strategic initiatives, leaving a strong senior leadership team enriched with expertise, experience and deep institutional knowledge.”

It’s from this pool of expertise that the new Capitec CEO will be pulled from.

Capitec executive of retail banking, Graham Lee, 50, will succeed Fourie on 19 July.

Lee has been a member of the group executive team since 2022, and joined Capitec in 2003.

According to the group, he has numerous strategic positions in credit, technology and data, retail operations, and most recently, the Retail Bank division.

Lee holds BBusSci (Hons) and MBA degrees and is a Chartered Management Accountant.

He has over 25 years of working experience in various financial and technology businesses in five different countries, including Zimbabwe, United Kingdom, Australia and Nigeria, in addition to South Africa.

He started his career in investment banking in Zimbabwe in 1997 before continuing in London with Morgan Stanley International.

Lee’s career outside of Capitec includes financial software development and data analytics in Australia and leading a micro-finance bank in Nigeria.

He also lectured part-time for the MBA programme of the University of Stellenbosch Business School.

Basani Maluleke will succeed Lee as Group Executive for the personal bank division.

Maluleke, who joined Capitec in 2021, previously served as CEO of African Bank and brings extensive experience from her role as Divisional Executive Operations over the past four years.

Capitec said that Fourie and Lee will continue to work closely together over the next four months to ensure a smooth transition.