Why bank CEOs are on the conference circuit

Have you noticed how, ahead of every major energy, infrastructure or mining conference, bank CEOs begin to announce their attendance weeks in advance? For decades, bank CEOs were largely inward-looking, perched in corner offices far from project sites and conference halls. Strategy was discussed on the 17th floor at headquarters.

The health of the bank was measured solely by balance sheets and quarterly profits. The search for new business was delegated to relationship managers and marketing teams in the field. That era is over.

The old model no longer fits the world in which banks now operate. Go to any industry conference in Lusaka, Cape Town, Nairobi, Lagos, Abidjan or Marrakech, and you will see bank CEOs increasingly present at events once attended almost exclusively by sector specialists. They may not be engineers, but it is no longer unusual to see CEOs of global and regional banks fluent in the language of megawatts, power grids, oil pipelines and refineries.

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Not being logistics experts does not prevent them from participating fully in discussions on new ports, rail links and trade corridors. Their presence on these high-level panels is not ceremonial. Investors want to hear directly from the person who ultimately decides the cost of capital and, therefore, whether a project is viable.

In capital-intensive sectors, where timelines stretch over decades and risks are complex, reassurance from a senior relationship banker is no longer enough. But this heightened visibility also reflects the CEOs’ own interests. They want to deepen their understanding of the industries they finance.

What does mine exploration really involve? What does it take to develop a power station from scratch? Which forms of digital infrastructure will shape future economies?

These are not academic questions. They are central to placing banks within the industries they serve. This growing CEO visibility points to a broader change in banking itself.

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