Woman On Top – Kalyani Pillay

SABRIC CEO Kalyani Pillay’s had an illustrious career that reads like a history lesson. Here, she opens up about being at the forefront of an organisation that helps fight banking-related crime

It’s not every day that a company CEO invites a journalist into their home for an interview – it feels almost intrusive…I step into the home of Kalyani Pillay, CEO of the South African Banking Risk Information Centre (SABRIC), walking on eggshells. But my apprehension eases when she offers me tea, a gesture that humanises her amidst general misconceptions of powerful women being too busy to tend to domestic activities [chuckles].

“Do you work from home often?” I enquire. “You must get a lot done working in such a serene space.” “Absolutely!” Pillay replies. “I work at a different pace, completely undisturbed and I have a choice about taking phone calls at home, whereas at the office I don’t. But one of the main reasons I’ve been working remotely more often is that I was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer last July. It had spread to my bones, spine and chest – but I am well and managing,” she shares, without a hint of self-pity. “I’m supposed to be working from home more often, but things get so busy that I’m sometimes not able to.”

NEW CHAPTER

Pillay has been at the helm of SABRIC since December 2007, an almost 12-year journey that she says has consistently presented her with learning opportunities. “I’ve been very fortunate in that every career opportunity I’ve walked into has always had everything that I look for in a job – a good old challenge,” she says. “Hitting the ground running has been the story of my career; it didn’t take long for me to familiarise myself with the banking industry and its processes.”

SABRIC is an initiative formed by local banks that deals with anything related to banking crime, be it someone unknowingly responding to a phishing email to someone being robbed after leaving a bank. “Ours is to create awareness and educational campaigns that will benefit everyone, irrespective of who they bank with,” Pillay explains. Digitisation, she adds, and banking institutions doing their utmost to make banking more accessible has led to the crime landscape adapting to new trends. “It’s encouraging to see how our banks are working together to fight this scourge.” Banks report all crime activities to SABRIC, which then compiles the information into analytical reports to help the institutions mitigate crime risks and determine how best they can respond to current and emerging trends.

TRANSITIONING

When Pillay completed her LLB in 1986, she already had a child between two degrees. Then less than five years later, just a few weeks shy of being admitted as an attorney, she gave birth to her second son. She practised at a private Pietermaritzburg law firm for about eight years, and became a conveyancer during that time. Prior to moving to Johannesburg in 1995, she decided to go it alone as her kids were a little older. Then, a month into running her private practice, the Department of Justice contacted Pillay about a position she’d interviewed for earlier that year: Head of a State Attorney’s office in Johannesburg. “It was an office of 45 lawyers, plus 50-odd admin staff at the start of the new South Africa,” she recalls. “It was also the beginning of women being placed in leadership roles. I was the first female Head of a State Attorney’s Office in the country, and had no qualms with being labelled an affirmative action candidate.”

In 1999, while the whole world was wringing its hands in anticipation of Y2K and the impact it would have, Pillay led a team of State Attorneys that was tasked with rewriting financial systems. During this time, she felt drawn to IT development, financial systems and project management. “I then applied for the position of General Manager of Systems Management and Optimisation in the Department of Justice’s National Office. I was there for more than two years when Vusi Pikoli, the Director-General of the Department of Justice at the time, asked me to help him fix the Johannesburg Maintenance Court because its poor service delivery was costing the department its reputation.” Thereafter, Pikoli then offered Pillay an advisory role in his office. Six months later, when former President Thabo Mbeki appointed him National Director of Public Prosecutions, Pikoli employed Pillay as his special advisor. She resigned less than three years later when Pikoli was unfairly dismissed. “I gave six weeks’ notice even though I needed to serve a month’s notice. I had some level of confidence that my years of experience would get me a job,” she recalls, laughing at her blind faith. Pillay spotted the SABRIC CEO vacancy in a newspaper and applied, on its closing date.

OUTSIDE OF WORK

On the question of her go-to method of unwinding, Kalyani bursts out laughing. “Everyone tells me that I don’t know how to. During the first two months of treatment last year, my team wasn’t loading me with a lot — so I cooked, baked and shared my creations with those around me. I find these two passions of mine therapeutic. Pillay says she’s still on cancer treatment but won’t slow down completely — something she says her doctor isn’t too happy about. “I worked from the beginning of my treatment plan, not because I needed to prove a point. I had the energy to and I’m fortunate to love what I do.”