Deloitte LLP appointed its first female Black chief executive officer to lead its African unit.
Ruwayda Redfearn will succeed Lwazi Bam on June 1, when he will exit after a nine-year stint as CEO and 28 years with the accounting firm.
Redfearn, 47, started her career at Deloitte as a trainee in 1997 and worked in both the KwaZulu-Natal province and New York offices before leaving the company to serve as chief financial officer of Grindrod Trading Ltd. in 2012, according to her LinkedIn profile. She returned to Deloitte in 2015 to take up a role as managing partner and has served as the chairwoman of the company’s Africa unit.
Her appointment comes after Deloitte faced scrutiny over a series of scandals in South Africa.
In 2020, the firm had to pay back R150 million ($9.5 million) in consulting fees to power utility Eskom to end a dispute over the pricing of contracts. The firm was also the auditor at Steinhoff International Holdings NV, which almost collapsed following an accounting scandal in 2017.
Redfearn will be the fourth Black CEO at Deloitte.-moneyweb
