Head: Financial Resource Management (FRM) at Absa Group Limited (Absa)

Job Summary

• The Head of Financial Resource Management (FRM) at Absa Group is a senior leadership role responsible for leading the strategic allocation and optimisation of the Group’s financial resources.  The role demands strategic vision, in-depth expertise, and leadership to actively steer the balance sheet to align with the Group’s strategy.

Job Description

Summary of key responsibilities:

• Strategic Leadership: build and manage a high-performing FRM team with the mandate to proactively steer financial resources in line with the Group’s strategy.
• Financial Planning: implement a top-down active financial resources allocation approach (capital, funding, liquidity, etc). The role also requires challenging clusters and legal entities on their utilisation and returns on financial resources to ensure alignment with organisational goals and enhance the Group’s overall financial performance.
• Steering: embed financial resources in target metrics (in particular Return on Risk-Adjusted Capital - RoRC) for all the key organisational decisions. Define limits, hurdles, and incentives to effectively drive FRM activities, ensuring alignment with organisational goals.
• Forecasting: design financial resource management information (FR MI) to support decision-making both vertically within the organisation and on a client and portfolio basis. Establish an appropriate FR forecasting process to drive decisions.
• Performance Evaluation: ensure FR metrics are duly incorporated in scorecards and contribute to executives’ assessment to ensure adequate returns on financial resources are pursued.
• Governance: establish and maintain appropriate governance over financial resources at the appropriate level of seniority within the organisation. Specifically, support the Group CFO and the Group Finance Committee in driving a strong financial resource management culture throughout the organisation. Act as the main senior contact on FRM matters to internal stakeholders, including Clusters, Group Risk, and Group Treasury.

Key Accountabilities

Strategic Leadership

• Establish and develop the FRM team
• Establish the new Central Financial Resource Management (FRM) team with a mission to strategically allocate and optimise ABSA’s financial resources, actively steering the balance sheet in alignment with Group strategy.
• Help establish cluster FRM teams with the mandate to work with cluster CFOs on FR matters and serve as a bridge with the central FRM team.

Lead a high performing FRM team to proactively steer Absa's FR

• Drive a high performance culture, ensuring the FRM team is seen as a good partner to the business, an effective challenger, and a key partner in driving the Group’s strategy from a FR lens.
• Develop the team’s skillset, identifying necessary capabilities and upskilling / training where required to drive the team’s mission.

Financial Planning

Embed an effective top-down active capital allocation approach

• Once Treasury determines the aggregate supply of capital and other financial resources (where appropriate), drive effectively their allocation to Clusters and entities. This might involve creating a scarcity in supply and establishing a mechanism to assess and challenge the marginal allocation for different purposes.
• Lead discussions with Clusters on additional financial resource demand and recommend efficient allocation of additional financial resources.

Challenge BU/LE on their FR utilisation and returns

• Evaluate whether Clusters’ utilisation of FR resources in comparison with agreed targets, and highlight opportunities where FR resources could be better deployed to achieve higher returns or mitigate risks more efficiently.

Steering

Embed RoRC consistently as a “North-Star” metric for all processes

• Develop a detailed plan for effectively embedding Return on Risk-Adjusted Capital (RoRC) at both the Group and Cluster levels. This involves partnering with clusters and gathering insights from Treasury and Risk departments on all Group-wide processes influenced by RoRC.
• Embed effective monitoring mechanisms to track the success of RoRC integration across processes and establish feedback channels for the Clusters' FRM teams.

Define limits, hurdles, incentives to drive FRM activities 

• Collaborate closely with Treasury and Risk teams to propose and maintain Cluster-level limits and hurdle rates. This involves working with Clusters' FRM teams to iterate the cascading mechanism and agree on proposed limits and hurdle rates at each level ensuring consistency with Group’s overall goals.
• Monitor the set limits for both Group and Cluster levels in collaboration with Clusters' teams, Treasury, and Risk teams.
• Ensure that FR metrics, limits, hurdles, and associated responsibilities are effectively communicated to all relevant teams, particularly the First Line of Defense (1LoD).

Forecasting

Review and design FR MI to drive decisions vertically and on a client and portfolio basis 

• Collaborate closely with Clusters to review and develop a Management Information (MI) dashboard at both Group and Cluster levels, which will be used to effectively review financial resource decisions with a portfolio and client perspectives.
• Enhance the effectiveness of financial resource forecasting across the Group.

Performance Evaluation

• Influence scorecards and performance evaluations from a FR lens 
• Provide input to [HR] to develop scorecard standards and guardrails that align with the Group's "North Star" metric, Return on Risk-Adjusted Capital (RoRC).
• Contribute to period assessment of executive scorecards, providing evidence and challenge on financial resources utilisation and performance.

Governance

“Stand up” and chair FRM Working Group, as a sub-committee of AFC, to aid GCFO and AFC assess FR and to make decisions.

• Align Clusters with FR management objectives, detect and escalate issues to AFC (informing ATC where relevant), analyse Clusters’ performance metrics, oversee use and returns on FR and provide regular performance updates to AFC (and ATC where relevant).
• Facilitate interaction with key internal stakeholders, including Group Treasury, Group Risk and Cluster / business unit teams, on key FRM matters.

Role/Person Specification

Education:

• Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Economics, Business, or a related field.
• A master’s degree (e.g., MBA, MSc in Finance, or Risk Management) or relevant certifications (e.g., CFA, FRM, PRM) is preferred

Experience:

• 15+ years of experience in Financial Resource Management, with at least 5 years in a leadership role.
• Proven track record of developing and implementing FRM strategies in complex financial environments.
• Deep understanding of financial instruments, markets, and resource allocation methodologies.

Technical Expertise:

• Proficiency in financial analytics tools and platforms.
• Experience with performance metrics, stress testing and scenario analysis.

Leadership Skills:

• Strong decision-making capabilities under uncertainty.
• Ability to inspire and lead teams in a collaborative and dynamic environment.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Comfortable in challenging senior stakeholders and remining impartial and objective.

Key Competencies

• Strategic thinking and problem-solving.
• Analytical and quantitative skills.
• Ability to articulate and manage financial resource appetite.
• Adaptability to evolving regulatory and market landscape