Mogopa tipped for FNBB’s top post

Inside sources at First National Bank Botswana have revealed that the current chief finance officer Boitumelo Mogopa is in line to become the next chief executive officer. The vacancy is occasioned by the looming departure of CEO Lorato Boakgomo-Ntakhwana, who was recently promoted to Deputy CEO of FNB Africa.

She will leave FNBB next month to take up her new international role in Johannesburg, South Africa from January 2015. Thanks to government’s citizen economic empowerment initiative, employees of the Bank say, Mogopa, a B-Com and Accounting degree holder from the University of Botswana, was favoured over the current deputy CEO Richard Wright, who is a South African national.

Both Wright and Mogopa are competent and deserving candidates, according to inside sources. “It was a tough race, but CEE worked in Mogopa’s favour,” said a source, adding that the duo also worked well with Ntakhwana and exhibited good leadership qualities. He said the two would still work together well as boss and deputy. Among her outstanding competent attributes are her credit and analytical skills. Wright, a University of South Africa Unisa B.Com, Banking, Business Economics, Accounting degree holder, on the other hand, is praised for his corporate finance and strategic financial expertise.

Prior to joining FNB, Mogopa worked as general manager under wealth management division at Standard Chartered and was management accountant at Barclays in Botswana. Efforts to interview Mogopa were not successful as she was reported to be attending a conference outside Gaborone this week. However, an official from the Bank’s human resource department said everything was in place for the new CEO to take over.

“We are almost complete,” she said. The new CEO will be tasked with growing and maintaining a focused and sustainable business across all three brands of FNB, RMB and WesBank. The CEO is responsible for steering the development, communication and alignment of the bank’s business strategy to achieve key business deliverables while leading and managing the bank’s listed subsidiary, First Rand Bank Limited. In addition, she will be responsible for developing a long-term strategic direction and broad strategic frameworks and targets to deliver shareholder value for the group and align the bank’s local strategy to global business trends in order to position the brands as differentiated and innovative entities.

The boss will enable sustainability in order to create value for stakeholders through managing ethical, transformative, environmental and social and governance factors. FNBB financial results for the year ended June 2014 show a 12 percent growth on the balance sheet from P15.80 billion to P17.64 billion. Advances to customers registered a strong growth of 17 percent.