Standard Bank board chair Nonkululeko Nyembezi cut an engaged figure at the group’s capital markets day held last week in Johannesburg, where the group’s executives outlined the lender’s growth blueprint over the next three years.
Nyembezi made her debut at the capital markets day in her capacity as chair, a position she assumed in June 2022.
The event was probably group CEO Sim Tshabalala and CFO Arno Daehnke’s last, with them set to retire at the end of 2027.
The Nyemebezi-led board will not be short of options for who steps into Tshabalala’s and Daehnke’s shoes, spoilt for choice with a surfeit of eminently qualified managers.
Among the cohort the board is expected to mull over are the heads of the four business units: corporate and investment banking (CIB), personal and private banking (PBB), business and commercial banking and insurance and asset management
Head of the giant CIB business Luvuyo Masinda and PBB CEO Funeka Montjane have emerged as strong candidates for the top roles.
The CIB business, which accounts for about R1.5-trillion of group deposits, is the crown jewel in Standard Bank’s R3.6-trillion arsenal.
At 46, Masinda is well respected in high finance circles, with his division contributing nearly 40% of the group’s revenue and almost half of its profit.
The franchise reported R24.1bn in headline earnings in the year to end-December, contributing handsomely to record R49.2bn group earnings.
Masinda has been at the helm of CIB since August 2024. Before joining the group in 2007 he plied his trade at US banking supermajor JPMorgan.
At Standard Bank he has held several leadership roles, including CFO, head of client coverage and chief risk officer for CIB — in a period in which the unit more than doubled its headline earnings.
Montjane, 47, is at the helm of Africa’s leading private banking franchise with 1.5-million clients and a particular dominance in the home loans market.
She joined the group in 2008 and was appointed CFO of PBB South Africa. She went on to fill the roles of head of home loans for PBB South Africa in 2010 and head of credit for PBB before being elevated to her present role.
The PBB franchise, with a client base of 16.6-million, contributes about 31% of the group’s revenue — up 4-million in the past five years.
Under Montjane’s tutelage, the business has grown its return on equity from 5.3% in 2020 to 23.3% in 2025 and headline earnings from R3bn to R11.4bn.
Standard Bank has not had a female CEO in its more than 160-year history. Another strong female candidate is the group’s chief operations officer Margaret Nienaber.
The 52-year-old Nienaber played a key role in stabilising the group’s technology infrastructure after a series of widespread and extended outages in early 2021 that inconvenienced clients.
She has been with the group since 2010 and was appointed to the role in 2022, after which the group has had three years without a major technology incident.
Veteran banker Bill Blackie, 55, head of the business and commercial banking franchise, has been with the group since 1999 in several leadership roles. He was appointed to his latest role in 2022.
The franchise contributes about 20% of the group’s income, dominating the midcorporate market (businesses with R100m-R1.5bn annual revenue), where it has about 100,000 clients.
Blackie’s age could potentially hinder his rise to the top. The group in 2025 raised its retirement age for executives to 63.
The CEO of the group’s insurance & asset management, Yuresh Maharaj, is respected in and outside the group. Having been with Liberty since 2015, he was appointed to this role in 2023.
Standard Bank has a long history of tapping insiders for the CEO position. In its 163-year history, it has had only one external hire, Robert Stewart.
Tshabalala used the capital markets day to hail the group’s leadership depth.
“I am privileged to lead this group leadership council team. These are very experienced and highly qualified people with a combined tenure of 225 years and 80 years on the group leadership council. Many of the group leadership council have been together for a decade,” Tshabalala said.
“Even more importantly, this is a tightly knit [group] that has managed cycles and crises as a team. We have deep pools of talent and a strong bench. We have approximately 170 experienced senior leaders who support the group leadership council and steer our business units.
“Standard Bank has a highly systematic approach to attracting, retaining and developing its best people in the business.”
It will not be a simple task stepping into Tshabalala’s shoes. His tenure has seen a huge rest-of-Africa expansion, growing group assets by nearly R2-trillion.
However, careful management of the succession process increases the likelihood that the chosen leader of Africa’s largest bank by assets will be fully prepared from the outset.
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