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Standard Bank's new Chairman
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Stephen Cranston
Financial Mail
Friday, November 20, 2009
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Fred Phaswana is the first black chairman of Standard Bank. But his appointment is not the historic break with the past that it might seem.
For years, the chairmanship of Standard Bank has been a nice halfway house for CEOs on their way to retirement. There were light duties opening branches and plenty of opportunities to continue to network on the cocktail circuit.
It was the appointment of Derek Cooper as chairman in 2001 which marked a break from this practice. The former chairman of food and packaging group CG Smith did not have technical banking knowledge, but his experience in mergers and acquisitions proved invaluable in helping Standard Bank fight off the hostile clutches of the Nedcor Group. Chairing a bank is no longer a ceremonial retirement job. The regulatory demands from the Reserve Bank, the National Credit Regulator and the Financial Advisory & Intermediary Services (FAIS) Act do not allow this.
Phaswana has indicated he will step down from his other responsibilities but he will do so "at the appropriate time". He has already resigned from the Anglo American board and as chairman of Anglo SA. He is also chairman of Anglo Platinum and of Transnet. He will need to move his home base from Cape Town to Johannesburg, as the job demands at least four full days' work a week.
In his new job Phaswana will have frequent contact with the minister of finance so it will not do him any harm that, before the election, he was a staunch supporter of appointing Pravin Gordhan, then at Sars, to run Transnet in preference to the most favoured insider, Siyabonga Gama.
Phaswana's main attraction to Standard Bank will be his experience at the multinational BP. This will be invaluable, as the increasingly complex Standard Bank group transforms from a domestic bank with a few satellite operations into a genuine multinational.
He joined BP in the 1960s ending up as regional president for Africa. Before that he was CEO of BP Southern Africa, director of BP Oil for Benelux and associate president of BP Netherlands.
He also brings a global perspective in his role as chairman of the SA Institute of International Affairs.
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