There is a Rolls-Royce, a Maserati, an Aston Martin and a couple of Porsches, but it is the Bugatti Veyron that occupies pride of place in the collection of fast cars owned by Sizwe Nxasana, the chief executive of FirstRand, the South African financial services group.

However, the vehicles are models that line a shelf in the Johannesburg office of the first black South African to head one of the country’s big four commercial banking groups. The 52-year-old Mr Nxasana is a very different kind of businessman to the politically well-connected black entrepreneurs well known for their lifestyles and powerful motors.

While state-sponsored black empowerment and asset transfer policies have created an elite of “black tycoons”, Mr Nxasana came through the apartheid system as one of the country’s first black chartered accountants and has prospered in the largely white corporate world. His management record – at Telkom, the partly state-owned telecommunications concern, and since 2006, as head of FirstRand’s banking business – has won him plaudits.

Although his ascent owes little to affirmative action, he is a firm believer in black empowerment policies – under which some ZAR500 billion (USD65 billion, EUR46 billion, GBP40 billion) of corporate assets have been transferred to black owners since 1994. He believes the real significance of his appointment is “a demonstration that the country is making progress in the area of transformation. [It is important] that my appointment acts as a catalyst for other corporates to do the same or even for other black people to have confidence in themselves that it is possible you can be appointed to a position like this”. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Aston Martin, Banking, BEE, Black Economic Empowerment, Bugatti, CCB, China, China Construction Bank, FirstRand, Fort Hare University, KwaZulu-Natal, Maserati, Porsche, Rolls-Royce, Sizwe Nxasana, South Africa, Telkom, WesBank