South Africa’s third-largest bank Absa on Monday announced that former Reserve Bank governor Daniel Mminele would become the bank’s first black chief executive officer.
Maria Ramos stepped down in February last year. Ramos was replaced by René van Wyk as interim CEO, a former colleague of Mminele’s at the Reserve Bank. Van Wyk will stay on as an executive director.
Mminele is not an unfamiliar name in the financial sector. He has been with Sarb for 20 years, rising to become deputy governor and a member of key committees such as the Monetary Policy Committee and the Financial Stability Committee.
His responsibilities as deputy governor included various departments – the financial markets department, the international economic relations and policy department and the legal services and national payment system department – as well as oversight of the human capital cluster and operations cluster reporting to the chief operating officer.
In a message to staff, Reserve Bank Governor Lesetja Kganyago said: “Deputy Governor Mminele has left an indelible mark on this fine institution and his contribution to the bank has been invaluable and immeasurable.”
Mminele (54), was born in Phalaborwa, went to school in Germany, and received a degree from London Guildhall University.
He went on to complete a Diploma in Banking at Sparkasse Paderborn in Germany in 1987, and spent eight years in various roles at Westdeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale at its Düsseldorf and London offices. He continued his studies in the UK and obtained various certificates from the UK’s Chartered Institute of Bankers.
He returned to South Africa in 1995 and spent about two years each at Commerzbank, working as a customer relations manager in corporate banking, and at African Merchant Bank as a project and structured finance specialist in Johannesburg.
He joined Sarb in 1999, and has represented South Africa in several international forums such as the G20, Brics and the International Monetary Fund. He was also a regular participant in National Treasury’s international investor roadshows to promote South Africa.
In January 2018, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier bestowed the Great Order of Merit to Mminele for his work in furthering German-South African relations.
The Great Order of Merit is the highest honour Germany can pay to individuals for services to the country.
According to a Pretoria News article, the German ambassador in South Africa described him as being half-German in “his life and his heart”. The newspaper reports that he is known in the Reserve Bank as “the German” because of his punctuality and precision.
Absa said interim CEO Van Wyk will step down on January 14 but will remain with the group as an executive director for handover purposes until January 31.
