BY VICTOR BAATWENG
Board of directors, business associates and company executives ÔÇô one after another are bidding the local financier ÔÇô Letshego Holdings ‘goodbye’. Reasons remain unknown. The latest to call it a day is Christian van Schalkwyk who up until 2nd May 2019 was a board member. Christian joined the Letshego Board on 1 April 2017 as an Independent Non-Executive Director. He was the Chairman of the Group Risk Committee, and a member of the Group Audit, Group Remuneration and Group Investment Committees. He joins key other members of the BSEL quoted lender who also left under unclear circumstances. Here is the list of them.
Lawrence Khupe – Company Secretary
Until his sudden ‘stepping down’ in March 2019, Khupe was the company secretary. He was appointed as the company secretary of Letshego in January 2018. To ensure continuity, Letshego board then swiftly appointed Dumisani Ndebele as the new Company Secretary.
Smit Crouse – Group Chief Executive
It did not take long after the departure of Khupe that the capital markets got another shock. With just under six months Crouse also called it a day. While the Board conducts its search for a successor, Dumisani Ndebele was appointed as Group CEO for the interim period in March 2019.
Colm Patterson – Group Chief Financial Officer
“The Group Chief Financial Officer, is leaving the Letshego Group to pursue other interests”, read part of the cautionary statement released to the capital markets in early March. Patterson is a former right-hand man of Letshego’s former managing director ÔÇô Chris Low who also quit in 2018.
Chris Low – Group Chief Executive
In early August 2018, Chris Low, then Letshego Managing Director, also abruptly resigned from his role after five years at the helm. This was perhaps the start of an era in which Letshego began to bleed top executives. At the time (August 2018) Colm was then appointed as the leader of a management transition team that the board established to steer the Letshego ship on temporary basis.