The man who wanted to become a doctor now running South Africa’s oldest bank

Harry Kellan has spent nearly his entire working career at FNB, steadily climbing the ranks to become CEO of South Africa’s oldest bank in 2024. 

Kellan, described as the ‘accountant of accountants’, has become a first-rate banker and overseen FNB’s strongest interim financial performance on record. 

Filling the shoes as FNB CEO has always been a difficult task since Michael Jordaan set the benchmark for all banking CEOs during his stint from 2004 to 2013. 

The bank under Jordaan became a hotbed of innovation, being the first to launch mobile banking via USSD codes and kicking off the loyalty programme war with the launch of eBucks. 

Kellan is proud to tell Daily Investor that FNB still offers USSD banking and retains the entrepreneurial spirit of the late 2000s, with it launching FNB Connect, nav>>, and Send Money in recent years. 

However, the bank has also matured substantially, becoming a well-oiled machine that executes on its strategic objectives in a disciplined manner. 

Kellan is currently overseeing the creation of an integrated financial services platform, which is something that FNB has made strong progress on, but remains elusive. 

He is also set to expand FNB’s operations in Africa in a meaningful way as part of FirstRand’s desire to increase its presence on the continent. 

In an interview from FirstRand’s campus in the heart of Sandton, Kellan made it clear that the FNB show is not about its CEO, but the people at the bank. 

“It was a good set of results, but let’s be honest, I can’t take credit for it. It was the work of my people at FNB,” Kellan said. 

FNB posted normalised earnings of R13.1 billion for the six months ended 31 December 2025, with a staggering return on equity of 41%. 

Kellan admitted the bank is not firing on all cylinders, with its African operations and merchant services posting subpar performance over the six-month period – but it is close.

“I wish I could tell you that we are a well-oiled machine firing on all cylinders. But then, I would be lying. The size of the business we have here makes it difficult to have all elements performing optimally,” Kellan said.

While praise should go to the people at FNB, it was equally clear that Kellan, a trained accountant known for his financial rigour, plays a vital role in combining the bank’s innovative culture with the discipline required to execute. 

“I am now closer to the business than ever as CEO. I can add value to the business and more so around it, with the people,” Kellan said. 

“There was clearly a strategic part of my role as financial director and then CFO. But, as a CEO, it is much more strategic and almost only strategic.” 

Kellan appears to be someone almost made to be a banker, but his journey to leading South Africa’s oldest bank shows this was not his path. 

Entering the world of finance

While his rise through the ranks at FNB and FirstRand has been methodical, prior to working at the banking group, it was not clear that Kellan was destined for a career in finance. 

Kellan comes from a long line of barbers, with his father and grandfather making a living in the profession in Durban and Johannesburg.

In an interview with Financial Minds, Kellan credits his mother with instilling a high value on education during his childhood. 

“I initially selected medicine and pharmacy as my first two university discipline choices. I was unable to get into either of the two and had to settle for my third choice – a bachelor’s degree in science,” Kellan said. 

This was supposed to result in him becoming a doctor. However, this dream proved elusive as Kellan struggled with biology, chemistry, and physics. 

Excellence in mathematics led Kellan to take the path of least resistance, changing degrees to focus on becoming a Chartered Accountant (CA). 

This career appealed naturally to Kellan and, while his family registered their displeasure, he pursued it with tenacity, earning a Bachelor’s in Accounting from the University of the Witwatersrand. 

Kellan qualified as a CA at Arthur Andersen and rose to become an audit manager. After five years in this role, high finance would come calling. 

HSBC acquired the talents of Kellan as Associate Director for its Corporate Finance Division in South Africa, marking his entrance into the world of banking. 

Kellan’s life would take on a new direction for the next two decades in 2005, when he joined FNB South Africa as its financial manager. 

From this starting point, Kellan would build a career that resulted in him occupying the CEO’s chair after Jacques Celliers moved to head FirstRand’s fintech efforts in 2024. 

Kellan rose through the ranks during the Jordaan years, becoming FNB’s CFO in 2007 and FirstRand’s CFO in 2014. 

Leading South Africa’s oldest bank

While accountants tend to have a reputation for being number-crunching machines that don’t care for human issues, Kellan said it is the people who excite him about leading FNB. 

“I mean, I grew up in FNB with these people. It is the culture that excites me. The culture and people are actually what excite me. I am the kind of person that is energised by people,” Kellan explained to Daily Investor. 

Kellan explained that he may have a different way of running a historic financial giant, closer to the Jordaan-inspired FNB of old. 

In a vein unimaginable to some banking CEOs, Kellan has an open-door policy, whether he is working at FNB’s Bank City complex in Joburg’s CBD, its sprawling Fairlands office park, or its Sandton campus. 

“People can walk in at any time. I am here late into the evenings, and people can walk in and have a chat with me,” Kellan said. 

“When I am walking up the stairs, people will go, ‘Hey, Harry, good to see you. Can I chat to you?’ Those kinds of events, I actually enjoy.” 

Kellan explained that these events enable him to get closer to the business and are not about influencing people or changing the direction of the company. 

“It is not about influence. It is more that I can get closer to the business, because when they are friends calling me, stopping me, and chatting to me, I am getting to understand a bit of what they are dealing with,” Kellan said. 

“I can understand their issues, whatever they may be, and then I can add value to the business and more so around it.” 

While Kellan loves financials and data, he explained that the combination of the culture at FNB and the people has led him to enjoy the strategic focus of being a CEO. 

Physically in the office every day, Kellan maximises these instances of engaging with FNB’s employees and takes no chances with being flexible or working from home. 

However, Kellan does take pride in the pure financial performance of FNB, with its industry-high return on equity a point of pride for the CEO. 

“We are very disciplined in what we call financial resource management. It is not just about acquisitions, but everything we do makes sense strategically and adds value for shareholders,” he said. 

“That is why FNB prides itself on maintaining a superior return on equity to its peers. FNB’s is 41%, but the FirstRand group’s is above 20%, and that is superior to most of our peers.”