{"id":817203,"date":"2025-03-17T08:48:20","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T06:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=817203"},"modified":"2025-03-17T10:48:23","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T08:48:23","slug":"absa-appoints-new-ceo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/817203\/absa-appoints-new-ceo\/","title":{"rendered":"Absa appoints new CEO"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Kenny Fihla will take over as Absa CEO, leaving his jobs as Deputy CEO of the Standard Bank Group and the CEO of Standard Bank of South Africa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Fihla is a recognised leader with substantial Pan-African banking experience and a proven track record,&#8221; said Absa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fihla, who has worked at the Standard Bank Group for 18 years, will serve his last day on Friday, 13 June 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He will also resign as an executive director of Standard Bank South Africa and the associated board committees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He will cease to be a non-executive director and chairman of the boards of ICBC Standard Bank Plc and Stanbic Africa Holdings Limited, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Standard Bank thanked Fihla for his services and said the necessary succession planning measures would be announced soon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His resignation comes only months after being promoted to his current role at Standard Bank, with his promotion to Group Deputy CEO coming only in September 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fihla was previously the CEO of Standard Bank Corporate and Investment Banking before moving to his current role in September 2024. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As the Deputy CEO, he is responsible for Standard Bank South Africa and the group&#8217;s Africa regions and offshore businesses, reporting to the group CEO, Sim Tshabalala.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fihla holds an MSc in Financial Economics from the University of London and an MBA from the University of the Witwatersrand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He will become Absa&#8217;s seventh CEO in as many years. Following the early retirement of CEO Arrie Rautenbach, Absa CEO Corporate and Investment Charles Russon took over as Interim CEO last year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The CEOs, permanent and interim, of Absa over the last few years can be found below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Maria Ramos \u2013 March 2009 to February 2019<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Ren\u00e9 van Wyk \u2013 March 2019 to January 2020<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Daniel Mminele \u2013 January 2020 to April 2021<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Jason Quinn \u2013 April 2021 to March 2022<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Arrie Rautenbach \u2013 March 2022 to October 2024<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Charles Russon \u2013 October 2024 to  June 2025 <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Kenny Fihla &#8211; June 2025 &#8211; <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Bank changes <\/h2>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><a  data-lightbox=\"post-image\" href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Absa-wide.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Absa-wide-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-812782\" srcset=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Absa-wide-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Absa-wide-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Absa-wide-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Absa-wide.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>Fihla&#8217;s new job marks another major executive change at South Africa&#8217;s &#8216;big four&#8217; banks, with big changes also seen at Nedbank and FirstRand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last year, Jason Quinn, Absa&#8217;s former finance director, joined Nedbank as CEO. Quinn has previously served as Absa&#8217;s interim CEO. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Harry Kellan was promoted to FNB&#8217;s CEO, replacing Jacques Celliers. He was FirstRand&#8217;s CFO for a decade. Mary Vilikazi was also promoted from FirstRand CFO to CEO. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Standard Bank Deputy CEO Kenny Fihla has resigned from the group, with his last day at South Africa&#8217;s largest bank in June as he takes the lead at Absa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":788842,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961],"tags":[29,4088,76,1799,2214,499],"class_list":["post-817203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-absa","tag-firstrand","tag-fnb","tag-nedbank","tag-rmb","tag-standard-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817203"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":817276,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817203\/revisions\/817276"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/788842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}