Jeanette Marais to be Momentum’s first female CEO
Momentum Metropolitan Holdings has appointed Jeanette Marais’ as group CEO, making her SAs first female leader of a large, listed life insurance and asset management group.
Marais will take over on August 1 from Hilgard “Hillie” Meyer who retires on September 30 after being in the role since February 2018. The move means Momentum will now have to find replacements for Marais in her roles. She served as deputy group CEO and CEO of Momentum Investments and also had executive oversight over Momentum Distribution Services, Consult by Momentum, and Momentum Money.
“After undergoing a rigorous, robust and thorough selection process, Jeanette emerged as the best candidate,” said Paul Baloyi, Momentum Metropolitan chair.
“I am pleased that this appointment represents a significant breakthrough in diversity, and I am proud that we found the best person for the job inside our company. This ensures leadership continuity and a continued focus on strategy execution,” he said.
Marais said in an interview: “The one benefit of an internal appointment like me is that I was part of crafting and executing our internal strategy over the past five years every step of the way. But it is also an incredible opportunity to be a trailblazer for women because there are not that many of us around in the industry.”
Marais first joined the group in 1990 before leaving for PSG in 1999. She worked at 20Twenty Financial Services, Stanlib, Old Mutual and Allan Gray before rejoining Momentum Metropolitan in 2018 as deputy CEO.
She holds a BSc in mathematics and mathematical statistics from the University of the Free State as well as an MBA (cum laude) from the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Marais says she plans to continue the “federal” operating model she and Meyer introduced five years ago. Each of the group’s brands — which include Guardrisk, Momentum Insure and Metropolitan Life — has its own CEOs with individual profit and loss lines.
“We believe that is a brilliant structure to maintain focus so there will definitely be no changes to that,” she said. “In a way that makes my role easier as my main focus is to enable the CEOs of our individual business units to do the best they can. But it also means they are truly accountable for their own end-to-end businesses.”
Momentum Metropolitan is to soon embark on a new strategy dubbed Beyond 2024, focusing on winning back market share in an economy characterised by low growth and a shrinking savings pool, she said.
“The market is not going to give us the growth. We know who we need to take market share from and what we need to do to remain competitive.”
Marais said there is “a very strong pipeline” of potential successors for her in the business. “But we’ll follow a proper process ... It’s actually a great time for new opportunities within the business.”