{"id":840574,"date":"2025-10-22T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=840574"},"modified":"2025-10-22T15:09:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T13:09:14","slug":"the-south-african-banking-ceo-who-became-a-knight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/840574\/the-south-african-banking-ceo-who-became-a-knight\/","title":{"rendered":"The South African banking CEO who became a Knight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South African-born Bradley Fried has held prominent positions in the USA and the UK, and was knighted by the British Royal Family. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fried was born in Cape Town in 1960 to a Jewish family and attended Westerford High School<\/a> in Rondebosch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He remained in the area to study a Bachelor of Commerce at the University of Cape Town. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After taking his Chartered Accountancy exams in 1988, he worked at Arthur Andersen as a CA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, he was bored in that role and was looking to do something different, with a particular interest in pursuing an MBA.\u00a0Speaking with Bruce Whitfield<\/a>, Fried explained how one decision changed his life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He then decided to call Wall Street guru John Wolfensohn\u2014who would soon become the president of the World Bank\u2014for career advice.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After getting through to Wolfensohn, they agreed to meet in New York. Wolfensohn said Fried should attend the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1991, he moved to the USA as a Palmer Scholar and to Wharton, where he received an MBA with distinction two years later. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fried said that Wharton helped expose him to new ideas that wouldn\u2019t have been possible without Wolfensohn\u2019s advice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After completing his MBA, he continued his work in the USA, joining management consulting giant McKinsey & Company, swiftly rising from associate to partner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After eight years in the USA, he partially reconnected with his South African roots by moving to London to work at Investec Bank PLC as Chief Operating Officer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After four years as COO, he was promoted to CEO in 2003. He would step back from his day-to-day roles at Investec in 2010, becoming a non-executive director on the board. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

New roles in the UK <\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>
Princess Anne knighting Sir Bradley Fried (Source: Cape Town Chronicle)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

In 2010, he founded the private equity firm Grovepoint and served as its managing partner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also took up more non-executive roles during this period, including stints at the UK\u2019s Treasury, the Financial Conduct Authority, London Business School, and the Bank of England. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From 2015 to 2017, he briefly stepped down as MD of Grovepoint to work as a part-time executive for the KI Corporation, founded by South African-born billionaire Nathan Kirsch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After serving as the Deputy Chair at the Bank of England since 2014, he was promoted Chair of Court in 2018. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After holding the role of chair for four years, he was knighted by Princess Anne as part of the 2022 Birthday Honours for his work with the central bank. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortly after leaving the Bank of England role, he moved to the board of Goldman Sachs International, where he served as chair. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, after just 15 months, Fried resigned from Goldman Sachs and returned to the KI Corporation as CEO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his current role, Fried handles Kirsh\u2019s empire, including Tower 42 in London and Jetro Holdings, Jetro Cash and Carry owner and Restaurant Depot in the US. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His oversight responsibilities have not ended, as he was appointed chair of the global investment firm Partners Capital in late 2024. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking back, Fried has highlighted the importance of courage when making decisions across his career. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thinking back on his call with Wolfensohn, Fried looked at the downside of making the call: Wolfensohn would be furious that he “wasted his time” and asked him never to call back. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This ‘worst-case scenario’ had little downside for him, though, because the alternative was his accounting work in South Africa, where he was yelled at, micromanaged and had to do stock counts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, he said that going big always needs to be rational, with a risk parameter around it. He warned that a risk should never be able to bring everything crashing down if it happens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This go-for-it mindset was crucial in getting him the Bank of England role, as he stumbled on the role when browsing the classifieds of a newspaper, and decided to throw his hat in the ring. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Twelve years after that, he became Sir Bradley Fried, a Knight of the Royal Family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bradley Fried was a bored accountant in Cape Town until one phone call with Wall Street legend John Wolfensohn changed his life. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":840575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[22754,1999,23872,1498,23873,23874,23875,23871],"class_list":["post-840574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-bank-of-england","tag-goldman-sachs","tag-grovepoint","tag-investec","tag-ki-corporation","tag-partners-capital","tag-westerford-high-school","tag-wharton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840574","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=840574"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":840715,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840574\/revisions\/840715"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/840575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=840574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=840574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=840574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}