Absa chairman steps down

Banking group Absa has announced that its chairman, Sello Moloko, will be stepping down from the role and as an independent non-executive director, effective 15 July 2025.

René van Wyk will succeed Moloko as chairman of the board effective 15 July 2025, subject to regulatory approval.

Van Wyk was interim Group Chief Executive Officer in 2019.

He re-joined the Absa board, after a cooling off period, as a non-executive director from 1 August 2020 and thereafter became an independent non-executive director from 1 August 2021.

He is the chairman of various committees within the Absa Group, including the Risk and Capital Management Committee and Group Credit Risk Committee.

He is also a member of the Directors’ Affairs and the Group Audit and Compliance committees and was previously a member of the Board Finance Committee.

These committee memberships and chairmanships will be revised upon his appointment as chairman, Absa said.

Van Wyk is the former Registrar of Banks and head of banking supervision of the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) and retired from that position in May 2016.

Before that, he was with the Nedbank Group of companies from 1993 to 2011, where he occupied various positions, notably executive director responsible for risk at Nedcor Investment Bank, and CEO of Imperial Bank (a subsidiary of Nedbank).

He holds a Bachelor of Commerce, Bachelor of Accounting Science (Hons), Advanced Management Programme (Insead), and is a Chartered Accountant, CA (SA).

Moloko has been Absa chair since 2022.

Moloko said he is stepping down to focus on his family, personal business interests, and community commitments, the group said.

He said the Absa board dealt with several challenges in 2024, which included appointing a permanent chief executive and initiating the restructure of the group’s retail operating model.

“These challenges have got me to reflect on the demands on myself and on my time. I feel the time is ripe now for me to refocus my attention on my family, my community commitments and the several personal business initiatives outside the group that I need to drive,” he said.

Absa announced in March that former Deputy CEO of the Standard Bank Group and the CEO of Standard Bank of South Africa, Kenny Fihla, would be appointed as the group’s new permanent CEO.

Following the early retirement of CEO Arrie Rautenbach, Absa CEO Corporate and Investment Charles Russon took over as Interim CEO last year.

Absa said Russon will stay on as Interim CEO until 16 June 2025. He will work closely with Fihla to ensure a smooth leadership transition, whereafter he will take another key senior role.

The CEOs, permanent and interim, of Absa over the last few years can be found below:

• Maria Ramos – March 2009 to February 2019
• René van Wyk – March 2019 to January 2020
• Daniel Mminele – January 2020 to April 2021
• Jason Quinn – April 2021 to March 2022
• Arrie Rautenbach – March 2022 to October 2024
• Charles Russon – October 2024 to June 2025
• Kenny Fihla – June 2025

Fihla will take up the role in June 2025, becoming Absa’s seventh CEO in as many years.