Page 182 - SARB: 100-Year Journey

SARB culture under Marcus and Kganyago
The central bank’s internal culture could best be described as distinct, hierarchical and formal. “Your title and rank mattered a huge amount,” said Mminele, who retired from the Bank in 2019.
But, ever so gradually, the SARB is catching up with the times, helped along in recent years by Marcus and Kganyago. These two governors are known for their strong personalities. This aspect of the two governors was apparent within the central bank in how they made headway in transforming its institutional culture.
According to Naidoo: “Gill and Lesetja have done an amazing job transforming the culture. It’s not perfect, yet. It’s not ideal, yet. Gill started the process. Gill drove a lot of the initial change. Lesetja, partly because he’s such a good communicator, put his foot on the accelerator.”
Governor Gill Marcus attends a press conference ahead of the February 2012 Budget Speech in Cape Town. /Foto24/Gallo Images/Getty Images
Marcus and Kganyago reshaped the central bank’s culture “in every respect; in employment equity, from a gender and cultural perspective, to the hierarchy of the institution and challenging the role of experts,” Naidoo said.
Cassim shared a similar view: “Gill Marcus, followed by Lesetja Kganyago, began the process of dismantling a culture of almost a kind of elitism in the Bank. Where, if you were a senior member, you had separate lifts. If you were a senior member, you ate in a different dining room to junior members. All that was gotten rid of in the last couple of years. The Bank’s culture has changed fundamentally.”
However, it is after all a central bank. As such, wearing suits and a somewhat strict dress code are among the last remaining vestiges of a conservative internal institutional culture.
Governor Lesetja Kganyago talking about South Africa’s public debt profile during a media interview in 2019. /Deon Raath/Rapport/Gallo Images
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