PAT SEMENYA
CEO of the Institute of Risk Management South Africa
Pat Semenya is a qualified chartered accountant and the Institute of Risk Management South Africa’s (IRMSA) new chief executive officer, appointed in July 2021. She has held a number of leadership roles across various industries over the past 22 years. Prior to her recent appointment as the CEO of IRMSA, she was the country director of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) South Africa, a leading global accountancy professional body.
Before that, Semenya led the trade assets optimisation function at Nestlé Professional South Africa, joining the FMCG giant from Johannesburg Water, where she headed the City of Johannesburg’s billings portfolio. She started her career as an audit intern at KPMG South Africa, following which, she held various finance management roles in the manufacturing sector.
A proud mother of two daughters, Pat matriculated at Vaal Christian School in 1994, and is a graduate of both the University of Johannesburg and the Regenesys Business School. In 2016, she was nominated by the Institute of People Management as Business Leader of the Year, and was named runner-up. In the same year, she was the nominee for the ACCA CEO Awards.
She sits on two boards as a nonexecutive director. Some of the projects she is involved with include her role as a judges panellist for the 2021 CFO South Africa Awards; her volunteer work as a member of the advisory committee, South Africa Focal Point, for the Global Reporting Initiatives (GRI) between 2016 until 2018, and her service as brand ambassador for the Institute of People Management (IPM) in 2016 and 2017.
Driven by her desire to contribute towards a cause, and to build her career on the value of leaving a legacy through education, Pat is passionate about the importance of inclusive and equitable quality education.
High on Pat’s agenda is the importance of promoting lifelong learning and imparting adequate knowledge, not only to the next generation of professionals, but also to inspire others to discover their purpose and potential.