Mary Vilakazi, first female CEO of Sth Africa’s biggest bank

When it comes financial performance, African companies led by women do better.

That’s the determination of a recent report by Africa.com and Standard Bank, which found that the collective market cap of the 34 African companies that had women group CEOs was up 2.8% in 2022, outperforming many stock exchanges in Africa and across the world.

Despite what is increasingly a growing body of evidence, that women outperform men in leadership roles, still just a fraction of companies listed on Africa’s 24 stock exchanges have female CEOs.

That said, numbers have been trending upward in recent years.

Last year, MTN Group appointed three new CEOs, all of them women, for its operations in Cameroon, Rwanda and Uganda, while earlier this year, United Bank for Africa Plc brought Ghanaian national, Abiola Bawuah, on board as its first-ever female CEO. And in May, Momentum Metropolitan appointed Jeanette Marais as its first woman CEO.

And now, in another female first, one of Africa’s leading lenders by market cap has appointed its first-ever female CEO.

Seasoned executive Mary Vilakazi is set to take the reins of FirstRand Group from Alan Pullinger on April 1, 2024, the banking group announced in a statement.

The financial services giant, which is the holding company of businesses including RMB, WesBank, Aldermore Bank, Ashburton Investments and First National Bank (FNB) – one of the country’s big four banks.

As well as becoming the banking institution’s first female CEO, Mary becomes its second black leader.

Mary Vilakazi – from PwC to FirstRand

Serving as the JSE-listed Group’s Chief Operations Officer and executive director since 2018, Mary is responsible for diversification strategies in insurance and investment management and has been in charge of creating oversight for regulatory and enterprise risk management activities across the Group. She is also a trustee of the FirstRand Empowerment Foundation.

Prior to joining FirstRand in 2018, she held a number of executive roles at Momentum Metropolitan Holdings, including CFO and deputy CEO and prior to that, served as CFO of the Mineral Services Group.

A qualified accountant, Mary started her career at accounting firm PwC, where she spent eight years, specialising in auditing of financial service entities, becoming one of the firm’s youngest partners, aged 27, in 2005.

She has served on the boards of multiple companies, including the Development Bank of South Africa and Kagiso Media. Her leadership expertise has earned her. WEF Young Global Leader nomination in 2016.

On taking the reins, Mary outlined the things that set FirstRand apart from its peers and enable it to outperform including “our portfolio of leading brands, our top-quality talent, our unique and long-standing culture of empowerment and accountability, and our relentless focus on shareholder value creation”.

Along with Mary’s appointment, the financial services giant announced a string of other leadership changes from April 1.

Among these, FNB CEO Jacques Celliers will be responsible for the group’s fintech strategy, and will be succeeded by FirstRand CFO Harry Kellan.

FNB CFO Markos Davias will then step into the CFO role at FirstRand, while Gideon Joubert will move into the CFO role at FNB, and head of finance for the group’s broader Africa portfolio Taufeeqa Waja will succeed Joubert. At Board level, Johan Burger will take over as chair in December.