Zarina Bassa
Vice Chairperson
Absa Retail Bank
Tel: +27 11 480 5019
www.absa.co.za
Zarina Bassa joined the Absa Group in 2002 as the managing executive of Absa Retail Banking Services, responsible for driving Absa’s strategy in this lucrative and competitive market segment. After the completion of the landmark deal that saw Barclays Bank PLC acquiring a majority stake in the Absa Group in 2005, she was introduced as a new Absa Group Executive Committee member and appointed as executive director responsible for private banking.She was the first and only woman to achieve such a position in South Africa. It was in this role that Bassa was named the Top Woman in Business at the annual Top Women in Business and Government awards in August 2007.She has, however, chosen to take on a more strategic and governance role as vice chairperson of Absa Retail Bank, a role she assumed in March 2008. Bassa strives to promote transformation in business and is determined to ensure that the barriers she broke would also benefit other female South Africans. To this end, she actively encourages the youth to become chartered accountants.
Ruth Benjamin-Swales
Audit Partner
KMMT Brey
Tel: +27 21 443 0200
www.ey.com
The pace at which women CAs have been breaking through the accountancy profession’s glass ceiling has quickened. Ruth BenjaminSwales is a University of Cape Town graduate who qualified as a CA(SA) in 1989. After completing her training, she worked at Ernst & Young, and then moved to the Office of the Auditor General. In 1997 she was invited to join the partnership of KMMT Brey, which became part of Ernst & Young in 2002.She is an audit partner at Ernst & Young in Cape Town, where she is responsible for a portfolio of clients in the education and public sectors. Since qualifying as a CA(SA), Benjamin-Swales has served the accountancy profession through her involvement in many sub-committees, councils and boards, including the SA Institute of Chartered Accountants (Saica), the Association for the Advancement of Black Accountants of Southern Africa and the Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors. She is also the immediate past president of Saica in the southern region.
Tamara Esau
Audit Partner
PricewaterhouseCoopers
Tel: +27 21 529 2000
www.pwc.com
Tamara Esau was admitted as a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers in July 2005 after more than four years with the firm. As an audit partner, her core responsibility is to plan and execute audit assignments, ensuring that all audit risks areas are managed to an acceptable level to issue the appropriate audit opinion. She is also human capital partner of the Assurance Western Cape Practice, with responsibilities in terms of recruitment, recognition and retention of talent.She is a member of the National Transformation Steering Committee, and chaired both the Century City employment equity committee and the Assurance transformation committee. She is also a member of the Association for the Advancement of Black Accountants and African Women Chartered Accountants and is involved in activities designed to increase the number of black chartered accountants. She is 2nd Vice President of ABASA and has served on their board for a number of years in various capacities. She is currently a fellow of the African Leadership Initiative. She is a qualified CA (SA).
Hester Hickey
Chairperson
South African Institute of Chartered Accountants
Tel: +27 11 637 6460
www.anglogoldashanti.com
From bookkeeper to fully-fledged chartered accountant to executive officer of AngloGold Ashanti. These are the highlights of Hester Hickey’s career — trumped last year by her appointment as the first-ever woman chairperson of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (Saica). After school, Hickey had applied for accountancy training but did not have matric qualifications in mathematics.Only after she turned 26 did she study mathematics at the Port Elizabeth Technikon and accounting at Unisa. Five years later she qualified as a CA(SA) and joined a small audit firm, where she became partner. Two years later, she became a lecturer at Wits, followed by an appointment as head of BDO Spencer Stewart’s technical and training activities. She later joined Transnet’s internal audit team and, when she left to join Ernst & Young, was acting head of the team. After 18 months she joined Liberty, where AngloGold found her nine years ago. She has been re-elected as the chairperson of Saica for another term. She will be taking up an appointment on the Board of Omnia Limited as a non-executive and will be consulting independently.
Tsakani Matshazi
Financial Director
Izingwe Capital
Tel: +27 11 784 3886
www.izingwe.com
At the tender age of 32, Tsakani Matshazi manages the till at one of South Africa’s successful empowerment investment vehicles — while only 16 years ago she was looking after the till at her family’s supermarket. She attended high school at St Andrews, Johannesburg, as a weekly boarder. Her weekends at home were spent at a till in the supermarket that her family ran in Soshanguve, near Pretoria.After matriculating in 1993, Matshazi completed her BCom degree at the University of Cape Town and passed her qualifying examinations in March 1998, her first year of training. She soon moved with her husband to Port Elizabeth, where she worked at a public sector organisation that assisted BEE small, medium and micro enterprises. Upon returning to Johannesburg, she became financial director of Izingwe Capital, where she has remained. Matshazi serves on the board of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants and is chairperson of the CA Charter Council.
Inge Mulder
Chief Financial Officer
South African National Roads Agency Limited
Tel: +27 12 426 6000
www.nra.co.za
Inge Mulder qualified as a CA(SA) in 1996 after completing her BCom (accounting science) degree at the University of Pretoria in 1991 and BCompt honours and CTA at Unisa in 1995. She worked as an internal auditor at Afrox in 1997 before joining the Sasol Group at the end of 1997. She was initially based at the Natref plant in Sasolburg as a senior accountant, transferred to the Sasol Solvents Division, Rosebank, in 1999 and was promoted to chief accountant in 2000.Working at Sasol afforded her vast exposure to corporate reporting and financial systems, as well the significance of team dynamics. In 2003 she was appointed by the South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) as its chief financial officer. In her first year in the new post, Sanral’s audit report, which for five years had received a disclaimer from the Auditor-General, was cleared to an unqualified report.
Chantyl Mulder
Senior Executive: Transformation
SA Institute of Chartered Accountants
Tel: +27 11 621 6625
www.saica.co.za
Chantyl Mulder trained for her CA(SA) at KPMG before joining the Public Accountants and Auditors’ Board in 1986 as education officer, a position she held for five years before being promoted to director: education and training. She joined the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (Saica) in 1999. “As a female CA(SA) who has faced many difficulties, I understand those who are discriminated against,” she says. “With my experience in the education field and having researched the profession and its issues, I appreciated the stumbling blocks involved in the education and training of young, especially black, CAs(SA).So when the opportunity to head up Saica’s transformation function presented itself, she grabbed it. Mulder developed a comprehensive transformation plan and strategy that evolved into the Thuthuka Education Upliftment Project, which seeks to transform the profession through education and corporate social responsibility projects.
Rudzani Cordelia Rasikhinya
Chief Director
National Treasury
Tel: +27 12 315 5306
www.treasury.gov.za
Reading a newspaper article about the first black woman chartered accountant in South Africa is what motivated Rudzani Cordelia Rasikhinya to become a CA(SA). She is chief director at the National Treasury — a high-pressure job that requires her to be constantly on her toes as she prepares consolidated financial statements for the whole of government.Rasikhinya studied for her undergraduate degree at the University of the North (now Limpopo) and then received her certificate in the theory of accountancy (CTA) at Unisa while studying part-time. Eventually qualifying through TIPP (training inside private practice), she started work at KMMT and KPMG, where she completed her official training. Rasikhinya’s long-term goal is to own her own business. “I have seen enough to appreciate that to be a successful entrepreneur one must be determined, goal orientated and full of integrity. I believe I have these qualities in abundance,” she says.
Erna Swart
CEO
Accounting Standards Board of South Africa
Tel: +27 11 679 0660
www.asb.co.za
Early this year Erna Swart, chief executive officer of the Accounting Standards Board of South Africa (Public Sector), was appointed deputy chairperson of the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB), where she has served as a member since 2005. She was nominated by the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants, whose executive president, Ignatius Sehoole, commented: “This is a highly prestigious international appointment that recognises the huge contribution that Erna has made, and continues to make, to public sector accounting activity, both in South Africa and abroad.The appointment was well-warranted.” The IPSASB focuses on the accounting and financial reporting needs of national, regional and local public sector organisations. Swart completed her training and articles at Coopers Lybrand. She is a member of the South African Member Accounting Practices Board, Accounting Practices Committee and a member of the finance committee of her community church. In all her roles, she has been constantly working towards developing public sector specific accounting standards.
Click here for the full special report