FirstRand announces management changes
FirstRand Limited today announced that the Group has made the following new appointments:
* Johan Burger, currently FirstRand Group Financial Director and Group COO is appointed Group Deputy CEO, effective 1 October 2013, but will retain the Group Financial Director role until 31 December 2013.
* Effective 1 October 2013, Harry Kellan, currently CFO of FNB is appointed CFO of FirstRand Bank and Jaco van Wyk is appointed Group Head of Finance. This follows Alan Hedding’s retirement as CFO of FirstRand Bank and Group Head of Finance (effective 30 September 2013). In addition to his role as FirstRand Bank CFO, Harry Kellan will be appointed Group Financial Director from 1 January 2014.
* Brian Riley retires as CEO of WesBank on 31 December 2013 and Chris de Kock, currently General Manager: Sales and Marketing at WesBank, has been appointed WesBank CEO from 1 January 2014.
Commenting on the changes, Sizwe Nxasana, CEO of FirstRand said:
“Following his appointment as Group CFO and COO in 2009, Johan’s role and responsibilities expanded significantly. This new role, as Deputy CEO (which also incorporates the COO role), frees him up to spend more time on managing the financial resources of the Group, namely capital, funding and risk, and driving strategic cross-franchise initiatives. We are very pleased that Harry is joining the Group to take over both the Bank and Group CFO functions, particularly as he joins us from our largest franchise FNB, where he has been CFO since 2007.”
Nxasana said that FirstRand is fortunate to have the necessary depth and quality of management to ensure a seamless handover of responsibilities.
“Given our owner manager culture, and the level of empowerment that our management teams enjoy, moving people into senior roles is quite straightforward and seamless. We have seen a great deal of change in our management teams – at both a group and franchise level - over the past 10 years, and thanks to the depth and quality of our people these transitions have been smooth and have ensured continuity and momentum in our operations. By way of example Chris de Kock has been at WesBank for 26 years in a number of executive roles. He has a deep understanding of the business, and as a member of the executive committee at WesBank for many years, is one of the architects of the current strategy”.
“We wish Brian Riley the very best in his retirement, he has overseen an incredibly successful period of growth at WesBank”.
