Three UCT alumna at the helm of SA’s most influential companies

Three University of Cape Town (UCT) alumna – who are sisters – are running some of South Africa’s most successful and influential companies.

Tsakani has been the Auditor General of South Africa since 2020, Basani was the first Black Female CEO of a bank after taking over at African Bank, and Refilwe now holds a senior marketing position at Discovery.

The siters grew up in Soshanguve, north of Pretoria. Their mother was a teacher, and their father was a lawyer who felt very strongly about education.

While the sisters were still young, their parents took them out of their township school amid the unrest in the final years of apartheid.

Before being taken out of school, the police would raid their school, probably once every two weeks, which included teargas.

Just before my parents took us out, we were having raids – probably once every two weeks. It was teargas, just complete disruption.

They then went to private school, attending St Andrew’s School for Girls, Johannesburg. The jump to a private school was tough, with years of schooling needing to be repeated.

Despite the early struggles at private school, all three sisters progressed and would go on to university and eventually take on highly influential roles.

Tsakani Maluleke

Tsakani is currently Auditor-General of South Africa, the first woman appointed to this role in over 100 years.

Her tertiary studies involved getting a BCom in Accounting at the University of Cape Town in 1996 and a Post-graduate Diploma in Accountancy the next year.

By 2001, she was a Registered Auditor and Chartered Accountant, having worked as a trainee accountant at PwC.

She worked at Worldwide Capital as a Transaction Manager before becoming a Business Finance Manager at the Eastern Cape Development Corporation (ECDC).

She then worked as a finance director at Izingwe Holdings and was an investor in mining, engineering, infrastructure development, and real estate.

She also served as the President & Non-Executive Board Member of the Association for the Advancement of Black Accountants.

In 2010, she was named Acting CEO of the Energy and Water Sector Education and Training Authority, before joining Deloitte as an Audit Partner.

She joined the Auditor General in 2012 as the National Leader of Audit Services, before being promoted to Deputy Auditor-General and CEO of the Office of the Auditor General of South Africa in 2014.

This made her the first woman to hold this Deputy Auditor-General position in the organisation’s history.

After the passing of the late Auditor General, Kimi Makwetu, in 2020, Tsakani was appointed as the Auditor General on a non-renewable term of seven years by President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Since taking over, she has increasingly pushed for greater financial responsibility from municipalities, with many still not receiving clean audit outcomes, which seriously impact service delivery.

Basani Maluleke

Like her older sister, Basani’s tertiary education started with her getting a BCom in Accounting at the University of Cape Town. She then went on to study an LLB, graduating in 2001.

Despite becoming an attorney like her father, she quickly realised that this was not what she wanted to do.

She eventually found a job in corporate finance that combined her finance and law expertise at Rand Merchant Bank (RMB).

In 2009, she furthered her studies and acquired an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management in the USA.

She returned to South Africa and joined FNB as Head of Private Clients. However, she found that the job didn’t fit her and quickly returned to corporate finance.

She then served as an independent non-executive director for African Bank. She joined the bank full-time in 2017 as the Group Executive Head of Operations.

In 2018, African Bank announced that Maluleke would take over as the bank’s CEO. This made her the first black woman to run a large-scale bank in South Africa.

However, after three years at African Bank, she joined its largest competitor, Capitec.

She started as divisional executive of business solutions in 2021 and moved into the role of divisional executive of operations in 2022.

In July this year, she was promoted to Group Executive of Retail at Capitec, overseeing the bank’s core banking products. She takes over from Graham Lee, who was appointed as Group CEO.

Refilwe Maluleke

Unlike her sisters, who focused on accounting, Refilwe instead studied towards a Bachelor’s of Business Science from the University of Cape Town. She followed this up with an Honours Degree.

She started her career at Unilever in 2006 as an assistant brand manager before being promoted to a brand manager two years later.

She then joined South African Breweries (SAB) as a Brand Manager in 2010 and became a Marketing Manager in 2012.

She then worked as a Strategic Director at Yellowwood Future Architects, and she also completed an MBA at the Cass Business School in London.

She soon returned to Yellowwood Future Architects as a Strategy Director and was promoted to managing director in 2018.

She also worked for the South African branch of the international advertising agency TBWA\ as the Chief Strategy Officer.

In 2024, she left her roles at Yellowwood and TBWA\ to join Discovery Health and Vitality Health International (Africa) as the Executive Head of Marketing.