Mr Sizwe Nxasana, CEO of FirstRand
The build up to Nxasana’s career success was not automatic. His fate was sealed when he stumbled upon a lecture by Prof Wiseman Nkuhlu, the first black person to be a Chartered Accountant in South Africa, on Chartered Accountancy, while he himself was studying towards a marketing qualification at Forte University in 1976.
He fell in love with the discipline and completed an undergraduate degree in commerce while at Forte University. His first work experience was at Unilever, but he went on to establish the first black-owned audit practice, Sizwe & Co in 1989.
In 1996,he became the founding partner of Nkonki Sizwe Ntsaluba, the first black-owned national firm of accountants, and was national managing partner until 1998 when he joined Telkom as chief executive officer. His experience in the financial services industry includes non-executive directorships, since 2003, of FirstRand Bank and Rand Merchant Bank, of NBS Boland Bank (1995 to 1998), of the Development Bank of South Africa (1995 to 1998) and Chairperson of Msele-Hoskens Insurance Group (1994 to 1996) (Entrepreneur Magazine website: www.entrepreneurmagazine.co.za , November 2009).
Nxasana has been the CEO of FirstRand since 2010 after taking over the reins from Paul Harris. He is the first black CEO of the country’s big four banks after his stint at Telkom as well as establishing the first audit practice in 1989. According to Nxasana, he finds the situation very sad that he is the first black person to become a CEO of FirstRand. To him, there are many black people who could have met the criteria of becoming CEO of any of the country’s big four banks and could do better than him if given the opportunity
The auditing, telecoms and financial industries have all experienced his success. But for Nxasana to transition across industries meant hard work and ambition. “Part of my transition was about ‘What’s next?’,” says Nxasana. These words have enabled him to lead these various industries without prior background knowledge.
He believes that all of us are capable of anything – even alluding to his parental guidance during his childhood. Although, he has worked with different people all his life, staying in a company for more than 10 years as CEO to him has meant creating a comfort zone.
Nxasana can be credited with achieving the highest standards of performance. “It’s all about setting goals, working hard and leading from the front. You have to understand that you work with people and as I am not the only person with wisdom, I make sure that I surround myself with people who are smarter than I am. This gives people the space to perform and prosper. The organisation has to have the right people in the right positions with a clear direction to succeed,” he says.
Although he works in an unsteady banking industry facing turbulence amid the global recession, Nxasana is confident that the banking industry will continue to exist. He states that we will however see a lot more changes taking place within banks. Major banks are already merging with smaller banks when they cease to operate. This is happening especially on the African continent.
“FirstRand is proud to be the only indigenous bank in South Africa as we are controlled by domestic shareholders. We are growing the footprint in Africa and we play an important role in becoming a development leader. FirstRand is proud to serve as a platform for their clients,” he says.
A role model for many people, Nxasana is humble, wise, disciplined and focused. This is a sure determinant in being able to sail through his studies during his early years. As a long distance learning university embodied with the relevant curricula for him to continue to study to be a Chartered Accountant (CA), Unisa was just the institution for him. Today, he stands proud to be an alumnus of Unisa.
