End of Absa’s era of turmoil

Absa CEO Kenny Fihla believes the structure he is putting in place at the lender will ensure it does not have a repeat of its revolving door over the past seven years. 

Fihla has spent much of the first nine months of his tenure building out the group’s executive committee and filling key positions within the bank’s leadership structure. 

A handful of these appointments are individuals poached from Fihla’s former stomping ground at Standard Bank Corporate and Investment Banking (CIB). 

Fihla had immense success leading this unit, making it Standard Bank’s crown jewel and seemingly setting himself up for a stint in the top job. 

Now, Fihla is looking to replicate this success at Absa and capitalise on its strong CIB unit to make it a pan-African banking giant. 

There is also the not-insignificant factor of time, with Fihla having less than a decade before he reaches Absa’s mandatory retirement age of 63. 

Some have speculated that, apart from their expertise, Fihla has brought in key players from Standard Bank to replicate his team and ensure he has individuals who can execute his strategy effectively in a short period of time. 

Chief among these is Zaid Moola, who was appointed CIB CEO at Absa on 1 January 2026. Moola had been at Standard Bank for 22 years and led its prestigious Global Markets division before switching over to the Red Bank.

This is all part of Fihla and Absa’s broader effort to ensure it has some form of leadership stability for an extended period, with experienced executives able to execute. 

Fihla made it clear in his first CEO’s report that the key to reviving Absa’s fortunes is ensuring stability at the top, so that a coherent strategy can be implemented. 

“I am acutely aware that Absa has had multiple leadership changes in recent years. Stability at the top is not a ‘nice to have’. It is a precondition for execution,” Fihla said. 

Fihla is the bank’s seventh CEO in seven years since Maria Ramos left in 2019, with the bank undergoing several strategic overhauls since then. 

Many CEOs reverse course from their predecessors, resulting in a lack of a clear strategy and Absa ceding ground to competitors. 

Fihla is committed to ending this, with the CEO describing his task as focusing Absa on execution, efficiency, and disciplined capital allocation. 

He noted that parts of the group have operated without the sharpness of focus and integration that a business the size of Absa requires. 

“I have made several permanent appointments across our three core businesses and supporting functions,” Fihla said. 

“I am building a Group Executive Committee that combines the institutional knowledge of Absa with fresh perspectives, is obsessed with delivering customer value with excellence, taking personal ownership for outcomes, and winning together.” 

Getting Absa back to winning ways

Fihla faces a challenging task in bringing Absa back to winning ways, with its peers having stolen a march on the bank during its period of instability. 

“I am under no illusion about the work ahead. We need to sustain confidence with investors, with customers, and within the group itself,” Fihla said. 

“That will take consistent execution over multiple reporting periods, not a single set of results. I am committed to transparency about our progress and shortcomings alike.”

Fihla is confident that Absa can get back onto the front foot, saying the bank is on strong foundations and has good potential. 

In particular, Absa is beginning to benefit from its expansion into Africa, with this part of the business contributing a third of earnings and growing faster than its South African operations. 

Fihla said the bank’s performance in the 2025 financial year was encouraging and showed that the franchise is fundamentally healthy, and action from the management team is beginning to bear fruit. 

“I see 2025 as a year in which the foundations for the next phase were put in place. The months since my appointment have reinforced my conviction that the organisation will move from stabilisation into more consistent execution,” Fihla said. 

“The work now is to turn the progress made into consistency across markets, businesses, and customer experiences. That means sharper execution, firmer accounting, and continued focus.” 

The 2025 financial year crucially provided some wins for Fihla, which should give the bank confidence in its strategy going forward. 

Leadership stability, once again, is a crucial factor here, with Absa lacking the ability of individuals to execute on a given strategy. In some cases, the individuals were able to execute, but they were not given the time to. 

“Whether it is South Africa or whether it is in the African regions, the bulk of the failure of this organisation has been as a result of some strategic moves that were not appropriate, as well as leadership instability,” Fihla said previously.

Absa’s main area of focus is the client interface, as it looks to make up the ground lost to its peers over the past decade. 

“I think the first area is that you win or lose at the client interface. So we have to sharpen our focus on which client segments we can win in,” Fihla said. 

“We have to make sure that we are able to create appropriate differentiation in the areas that we want to focus on. That is true for all of our businesses – retail, business banking, and CIB.” 

Fihla also looks set to shift Absa’s focus to growing outside its home market of South Africa, to capture value from faster-growing economies in the rest of the continent.