{"id":872415,"date":"2026-09-03T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=872415"},"modified":"2026-09-03T16:46:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T14:46:13","slug":"the-man-who-went-from-driving-taxis-to-becoming-the-ceo-of-a-south-african-bank-with-over-6-million-customers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/872415\/the-man-who-went-from-driving-taxis-to-becoming-the-ceo-of-a-south-african-bank-with-over-6-million-customers\/","title":{"rendered":"The man who went from driving taxis to becoming the CEO of a South African bank with over 6 million customers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Zweli Manyathi has gone from a taxi driver to the CEO of one of South Africa’s largest banks, African Bank. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Manyathi spoke about his life to Lesaka Technologies South Africa CEO Lincoln Mali<\/a>, who had previously worked for Manyathi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He began his political career in 1976, the year of the Soweto Uprising. He was involved in daily clashes with the police and the military. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He saw the brutal retaliation of the struggle firsthand, seeing friends die or flee into exile. To escape arrest, Manyathi would also flee to Kwaggafontein in Mpumalanga. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Kwaggafontein, he took manual labour and odd jobs to survive, which included working as a labourer for a bridge builder and driving taxis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite his struggles, Manyathi would pursue higher education, earning two degrees from the University of South Africa (UNISA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ahead of South Africa’s first democratic elections, Nelson Mandela selected a cohort of young individuals, including Manyathi, to study overseas to acquire high-level professional skills. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The goal was to make sure that South Africa’s new leaders had the relevant skills to address the country’s needs, with many having worked in financial services. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He would then go on to study at several top institutions across the globe, including Baruch College (City University of New York), Oxford University, and Harvard University. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After completing his education overseas, he returned to South Africa and entered the banking sector. However, his career began at the bottom, with his first role being a messenger, delivering documents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of focusing on promotions, he concentrated entirely on mastering his current role, which would lay the foundation for his later work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A banking CEO<\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Manyathi would go on to hold several high-profile roles in South Africa’s banking industry, including serving as CEO of FNB Branch Banking and FNB Corporate Banking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was also the CEO of Business and Commercial at Standard Bank, where he oversaw strategic direction and contributed to the delivery of financial services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He joined African Bank’s boards in September 2022 as an executive director and Chief Executive: Business & Commercial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He took over as interim Group CEO in March 2026 following the sudden resignation of Kennedy Bungane after reporting poor performance and a financial reporting error. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

African Bank then announced in August that Manyathi had been appointed permanent Group CEO after months in the interim role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His start in the top job came amid a series of issues facing African Bank, which recorded a net after-tax loss of R624 million for the six months ended March 31 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bank then announced that it is contemplating a massive restructuring, which could affect 1,200 employees and result in 90 branches closing across South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group said that costs were outpacing its risk-adjusted revenue and that it had reached a point where it had to review staff costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trade union SASBO slammed African Bank\u2019s premature announcement of its contemplation of the Section 189A consultation process, and its public nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bank also announced that its planned initial public offering was pushed back to 2030 amid heightened costs, delaying the South African Reserve Bank’s exit from the bank. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

African Bank was on a massive acquisition drive in the first half of the 2020s, with billions spent to enter business banking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This included acquiring Grindrod Bank for R1.5 billion; Ubank\u2019s assets for R80 million; and Sasfin Capital Equipment Finance and Commercial Property Finance Businesses for R3.25 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It exited a deal to acquire Eskom\u2019s R5.7 billion Home Loan book, which would have marked its entry into secured lending, instead focusing on integrating the other completed acquisitions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite its struggles, African Bank remains one of the nation’s largest banks, with over 6 million customers and hundreds of branches. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Zweli Manyathi has gone from building bridges and driving taxis to leading African Bank as CEO. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":873700,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2095527508053557662","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2194841531336246","_sma_instagram_post_id":"18119705630476714","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[961],"tags":[4762,1164,76,26278,24787,12334,499],"class_list":["post-872415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-african-bank","tag-eskom","tag-fnb","tag-grindrod","tag-lesaka","tag-sasfin","tag-standard-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872415","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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=872415"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":873690,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872415\/revisions\/873690"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/873700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=872415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=872415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=872415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}