CAPE TOWN – Absa’s Group Chief Executive Officer, Maria Ramos will retire at the end of February 2019 and its board has appointed René van Wyk as the Interim Chief Executive with effect from 1 March 2019.
René has been a non-executive director on the Board since February 2017. He was previously the Registrar of Banks within the South African Reserve Bank and retired from that position in May 2016.
René had 19 years of experience with Nedbank, including as Executive Director of Risk for the then listed Nedcor Investment Bank. He was also Chief Executive Officer of Imperial Bank.
Prior to that, René was with the Nedbank Group of companies from 1993 to 2011, where he occupied various positions in the risk field, notably executive director responsible for risk at Nedcor Investment Bank.
He was also the chief executive of Imperial Bank (a subsidiary of Nedbank).
In his earlier years, he joined KPMG and progressed to partner in the financial services group.
He has a BCom; BCompt (Hons) and Chartered Accountancy (SA) qualifications which he obtained at the University of Johannesburg and University of South Africa.
He will remain on the Boards and will be classified as an executive director with effect from 1 February 2019.