Absa’s leadership cohort is beginning to take shape, with more executives from group CEO Kenny Fihla’s erstwhile employer, Standard Bank, jumping ship to join him at the red bank as he leads an ambitious project to get Absa firing on all cylinders. Avikaar Ramphal is the latest executive to buy into Fihla’s Absa renaissance blueprint, which has already won over investors, with Absa’sshare price up more than 30%since Fihla took over the lender about seven months ago. Ramphal, whose most recent role was that of portfolio head, strategy enablement at Standard Bank’s corporate and investment banking (CIB), joined Absa last month as its head of strategic risk.
The long-time Standard Bank staffer is no stranger to Fihla, having served a stint as strategist in his office during his tenure as Standard Bank CIB CEO. Fihla has been credited with building Standard Bank’s CIB unit into a formidable force on the continent. Absa pulled off a coup in March last year when it prised Fihla away from Standard Bank, where he had held multiple roles.
His enduring legacy at Standard Bank was growing its CIB business into a juggernaut, indispensable to deal-making on the continent. Under his guardianship as CEO from 2017 to 2024, Standard Bank CIB doubled its headline earnings to R20.5bn and achieved a compound annual growth rate of 8.6%. To achieve his goals at Absa, Fihla has turned to his trusted Standard Bank CIB foot soldiers to help in achieving the target of geographically diversifying the bank’s earnings.
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Absa in September appointedZaid Moolaas CEO of its CIB business. Before the appointment, Moola led Standard Bank’s highly successful global markets, which recently recorded a record profit of R5.4bn in the six months to end-June, a surge of 64% from the previous period, cementing its place as a cog in the group’s CIB division. In another signal that Fihla aims to grow Absa’s CIB business, the lender appointed Musa Motloung as group strategic risk officer, also joining from Standard Bank, where he was chief risk officer in the CIB business.
Motloung will report to the chief risk officer, Rajal Vaidya. Absa’s high CEO turnover over the past decade and strategy mishaps have been largely blamed for the group’s underperformance compared with its peer group and loss of market share. Fihla became the seventh Absa CEO, either on an acting or permanent basis, since 2019 after years of turmoil at the top. When Maria Ramos retired in 2019 after a decade in the role, she was replaced temporarily by René van Wyk, who acted in the role for a year.
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