Magda Wierzycka, the founder and chief executive of Sygnia<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nThe proposed scheme would expand Sygnia’s existing share option programme, which has been in place since 2019, allowing the company to allocate more options and raise the allocation threshold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wierzycka said the objective was to retain and reward the executives who had helped build the business, many of whom had been with the company for more than a decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe only reason to do that is to incentivise and lock in our executives and executive team,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She argued that the existing arrangements were insufficient to attract and retain senior executives in a competitive financial services industry, citing Sygnia’s difficulty in recruiting a chief financial officer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The scheme was also intended to address the absence of an appropriate incentive structure for a future chief executive, should she leave the company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf I fall under the bus tomorrow, we don’t have a share option scheme that would attract a new CEO and reward a new CEO. We have nothing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wierzycka acknowledged that she would benefit from the expanded scheme, but maintained that the proposal was about the long-term interests of the company as well as her own remuneration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI’m not denying for a second, neither is the board, that I would benefit from that scheme as a CEO,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the possibility of leaving Sygnia is not merely theoretical. She said she had a 30-day notice period and no contractual restriction preventing her from launching a competing business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wierzycka is also developing an investment venture focused on gaining access to shares in international technology companies, including Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX, before they list publicly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She said the opportunity could be pursued under Sygnia’s umbrella or independently, and that she believed it had significant potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe saddest thing to me is that I can make more money out of that than I’ve made out of Sygnia over 20 years,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She also rejected the idea that Sygnia was a family legacy that would necessarily keep her at the company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her two sons are pursuing careers and further studies in the United States, and she said neither intended to return to South Africa. \u201cIt’s not my baby, by the way, and it’s not a family legacy,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although she said she loved Sygnia, Wierzycka indicated that she was not prepared to remain indefinitely simply because she founded it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI do believe I can personally make substantial money if that matters,\u201d she said, adding that her future decisions would also depend on intellectual stimulation and the opportunity to pursue new ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wierzycka emphasised that she was not saying she would automatically leave if shareholders rejected the scheme. However, the outcome would force her to reconsider her position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPeople always go and say, \u2018Yeah, she’s bluffing.\u2019 I don’t bluff,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Magda Wierzycka, the founder and chief executive of Sygnia, says she may have to reconsider her future at the asset manager if shareholders reject a controversial share incentive scheme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":844383,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2112197339867701278","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2242356473251418","_sma_instagram_post_id":"18163328806508199","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[18849,175,853,11885],"class_list":["post-880411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-biznews","tag-jse","tag-south-africa","tag-sygnia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880411","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\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=880411"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":880452,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880411\/revisions\/880452"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/844383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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