Standard Chartered Bank of Botswana this week held a customer appreciation evening at the Gaborone Sun Conference Centre to informally introduce new CEO, Moatlhodi Lekaukau.
Lekaukau was formerly Head of Mergers & Acquisitions at Deloitte & Touche South Africa and formally took up his new post on 1st February 2012.
At 37, he is the bank’s youngest CEO and the first citizen incumbent in its hundred-year history.
In a speech to assembled clients and stakeholders, Lekaukau commented that he felt he was in the right position at the right time, coming, as he has, as the bank enters its ninth straight year of record income and profitability. It was his intention, he said, to lead the Bank into a new era of innovation and new initiatives, including expansion of its branch and ATM network and working with customers to deliver more customised and effective solutions and products.
He noted that Standard Chartered Botswana had already distinguished itself becoming the first and only bank to extend its opening hours in Game City to 7pm on weekdays, expand Saturday trading hours and introduce the concept of Sunday opening. In addition, the bank has this month concluded a new initiative enabling customers to withdraw money from any ATM in the country without incurring additional bank charges.
Present at the function was Standard Chartered CEO South Africa, Ebenezer Essoka. In a speech, he congratulated Lekaukau on his appointment, the first citizen CEO in over a century of trading in Botswana. The bank had not wanted to accept silver, he said, rather it had waited for gold. He also passed on a message from Standard Chartered UK CEO Peter Sands to the new appointee. “You are a star, you will succeed and you will have all the support you need.”
Lekaukau advised the assembly that he would be spending the next few months traveling round the country, meeting staff and customers and visiting all the bank’s branches and offices.
